Scales And Rural Museum Weight Page 1

WEIGHTS COLLECTION

Pie Crust Weights

The Museum Weights Collection
During the middle-ages and the establishment of modern law, government and standardisation in the UK, departments (or Guildhalls) were created to regulate the new laws and standards - with most weights at this time being made, tested and stamped with London maker marks and official standard marks. As this system evolved, and to make sure trading weights were correct and fair, local inspectors went out into the shops and markets and used 'Working Standards' weights to check no unfair weights were being used. Harsh penalties were enforced against traders found using lighter weights than marked in their transactions. To check the accuracy of the working standards weights used by the inspectors a set left secure in the local inspectors office were used, called 'Local Standards' weights. And at the top of this chain, within the UK, in a vault of the main government trading standards department building in London, are the 'Imperial Standards' these are weights by which all other weights in the UK are measured and checked against.

The museum's collection of weights is large and varied, with weights of an historic rarity next to the more commonly found weights. Some of the brass weights were even used by and bought from The Bank of England (after they replaced them with more accurate, stainless steel weights and withdrew them from use).

Rare Iron 'Pie-Crust' Weights Dating From The 1840's
These 'pie-crust' weights, of the design implimented by David Green (who first registered the design on 1 August 1847) are of an important historic value as very few of these weights have survived. They are oval in design with a diamond registration mark cast in relief in the centre and bordered with the distinctive 'pie-crust' edge. John and David Green set up the Coseley Foundry around 1820. Their early weights bore the name I & D Green, but from about 1845 onwards the firm was known as D. Green & Co.