English Coin Weights
Coin weights were made to correspond to the weights of particular coin denominations, and the denomination in question was usually indicated in the design. They were most commonly made of brass or other copper alloy and were generally produced for high-value pieces, gold rather than silver coins.
Figure 1: A coin weight of King Charles I, a weight for a gold unite of value 20 shillings
Their purpose was to check the weight of coin in circulation and ensure that coin received was of good quality. Normally they would correspond to the lowest weight at which the coin remained legal tender. They could be used to guard against clipped, worn or counterfeit coin and to check the standards of foreign coin permitted in currency.
Figure 2:
weight for a gold moidore current in England at 27 shillings
For example, weights were provided in England for ducats and florins in the sixteenth century; for French louis d'or in the late seventeenth; and for the huge amounts of Portuguese gold in the early eighteenth. Coin weights could also check older denominations surviving in use, and revalued coin.
Coin weights were not consistently produced or used. Other forms of weights could be easily be employed instead, and, as the regular weighing of the coins in daily business could be a nuisance, coin would be pass at face value where possible. Also, there could be suspicion of the accuracy of the weights themselves. Hence, English coin weights appear to have been in common use only at certain times.
In the late fifteenth century changes in the gold coinage inspired round or many-sided weights for nobles, ryals and angels, marked with the relevant design but blank on the back. Square weights, easier to produce for box sets, were provided in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, along with purpose made balances. Under James I and Charles I weights were needed to differentiate between older coin and lighter new coin in circulation together at different valuations, for example two sorts of gold angel, one worth 10 shillings and the other 11 shillings.
From the 1630s round weights regained their dominance, usually with an image of the ruler on one side (derived from the coinage) and the mark of value in pounds, shillings and pence on the back. (Fig 1 shows a weight for a gold unite of Charles I, value 20 shillings). These English coin weights differed from French and Irish ones of the period in not having the official weight itself stamped on the piece. The provision of coin weights did not cease completely until the end of the nineteenth century.
Bibliography
A Dieudonne, Manuel des Poids Monetaire Paris, 1925
N Biggs, 'English Coin Weights' (9 parts), in Equilibrium: The Quarterly Magazine of the International Society of Antique Scale Collectors.
G Houlden, European Coin Weights for English Coins, Zwolle, 1978
Withers, P & B, British coin-weights. A corpus of the coin weights made for use in England, Scotland and Ireland, Galata Print Ltd., Llanfyllin, 1993
