Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th-century England[1] and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and the troy pound (12 troy ounces). The troy grain is equal to the grain unit of the avoirdupois system, but the troy ounce is heavier than the avoirdupois ounce, and the troy pound is lighter than the avoirdupois pound. One troy ounce (oz t) equals exactly 31.1034768 grams.
Troy ounce is a traditional unit of gold weight.One-troy-ounce (480 gr; 31 g) samples of germanium, iron, aluminium, rhenium and osmiumA Good Delivery silver bar weighing 1,000 troy ounces (83 troy pounds; 31 kg)
Troy weight probably takes its name from the French market town of Troyes where English merchants traded at least as early as the early 9th century.[2][3] The name troy is first attested in 1390, describing the weight of a platter, in an account of the travels in Europe of the Earl of Derby.[2][4]
Charles Moore Watson (1844–1916) proposes an alternative etymology: The Assize of Weights and Measures (also known as Tractatus de Ponderibus et Mensuris), one of the statutes of uncertain date from the reign of either Henry III or Edward I, thus before 1307, specifies "troni ponderacionem"—which the Public Record Commissioners translate as "troy weight". The word troni refers to markets. Watson finds the dialect word troi, meaning a balance in Wright's The English Dialect Dictionary. Troy weight referred to the tower system; the earliest reference to the modern troy weights is in 1414.[5][6] Troy weight is a style of weighing, like auncel or bismar weights, or other kindred methods. The troy weight then refers to weighing of small precious or potent goods, such as bullion and medicines.[5]
Historyedit
The origin of the troy weight system is unknown. Although the name probably comes from the Champagne fairs at Troyes, in northeastern France.[7] English troy weights were nearly identical to the troy weight system of Bremen. (The Bremen troy ounce had a mass of 480.8 British Imperial grains.)[8]
Many aspects of the troy weight system were indirectly derived from the Roman monetary system. Before they used coins, early Romans used bronze bars of varying weights as currency. An aes grave ("heavy bronze") weighed one pound. One twelfth of an aes grave was called an uncia, or in English, an "ounce". Before the adoption of the metric system, many systems of troy weights were in use in various parts of Europe, among them Holland troy, Paris troy, etc.[9] Their values varied from one another by up to several percentage points. Troy weights were first used in England in the 15th century and were made official for gold and silver in 1527.[1] The British Imperial system of weights and measures (also known as Imperial units) was established in 1824, prior to which the troy weight system was a subset of pre-Imperial English units.
The troy ounce in use today is essentially the same as the British Imperial troy ounce (1824–1971), adopted as an official weight standard for United States coinage by act of Congress on May 19, 1828.[10] The British Imperial troy ounce (known more commonly simply as the imperial troy ounce) was based on, and virtually identical with, the pre-1824 British troy ounce and the pre-1707 English troy ounce. (1824 was the year the British Imperial system of weights and measures was adopted; 1707 was the year of the Act of Union which created the Kingdom of Great Britain.) Troy ounces have been used in England since the early 15th century, and the English troy ounce was officially adopted for coinage in 1527. Before that time, various sorts of troy ounces were in use on the continent.[8]
The troy ounce and grain were also part of the apothecaries' system. This was long used in medicine, but has now been largely replaced by the metric system (milligrams).[11] The only troy weight in widespread use today is the British Imperial troy ounce and its American counterpart. Both are currently based on a grain of 0.06479891 gram (exact, by definition), with 480 grains to a troy ounce (compared with 437+1⁄2 grains for an ounce avoirdupois). The British Empire abolished the 12-ounce troy pound in the 19th century, though it has been retained (although rarely used) in the American system. Larger amounts of precious metals are conventionally counted in hundreds or thousands of troy ounces (or in kilograms).
Troy ounces have been and are still often used in precious metal markets in countries that otherwise use International System of Units (SI),[12][13] except in East Asia.[14] However, the People's Bank of China has previously used troy measurements in minting Gold Pandas beginning in 1982; since 2016, the use of troy ounces has been replaced by integer numbers of grams.
Units of measurementedit
Chart comparing the mass (in grams) of tower, Troy, merchant, avoirdupois and London pounds. Each colored block represents one of that system's ounces (gold=Troy, blue= avoirdupois, purple=tower)
Troy pound (lb t) edit
The standard British troy pound manufactured in 1758; it bears the abbreviation ℔ ("pound") and the letter "T" for troy.
The troy pound (lb t) consists of twelve troy ounces[15] and thus is 5760 grains (373.24172 grams). (An avoirdupois pound is approximately 21.53% heavier at 7000 grains, and consists of sixteen avoirdupois ounces).
Troy ounce (oz t) edit
A troy ounce weighs 480 grains.[15] Since the implementation of the international yard and pound agreement of 1 July 1959, the grain measure is defined as precisely 64.79891milligrams.[16]: C-19 [17] Thus one troy ounce = 480 grains × 0.06479891 grams/grain = 31.10347680 grams. Since the ounce avoirdupois is defined as 437.5 grains, a troy ounce is exactly 480⁄437.5 = 192⁄175 or about 1.09714 ounces avoirdupois or about 9.7% more. The Troy ounce for trading precious metals is considered to be sufficiently approximated by 31.10 g in EU directive 80/181/EEC[18]
The Dutch troy system is based on a mark of 8 ounces, the ounce of 20 engels (pennyweights), the Engel of 32 as. The mark was rated as 3,798 troy grains or 246.084 grammes. The divisions are identical to the tower system.[19]
Pennyweight (dwt)edit
The pennyweight symbol is dwt. One pennyweight weighs 24 grains, and 20 pennyweights make one troy ounce.[15] Because there were 12 troy ounces in the old troy pound, there would have been 240 pennyweights to the pound (mass) – just as there were 240 pennies in the original pound-sterling. However, prior to 1526, English pound sterling was based on the tower pound, which is 15⁄16 of a troy pound. The d in dwt stands for denarius, the ancient Roman coin that equates loosely to a penny. The symbol d for penny can be recognized in the form of British pre-decimal pennies, in which pounds, shillings, and pence were indicated using the symbols £, s, and d, respectively.
There is no specific 'troy grain'. All Imperial systems use the same measure of mass called a grain (historically of barley), weighing exactly 64.79891 milligrams.[a]
Mint massesedit
Mint masses, also known as moneyers' masses were legalized by Act of Parliament dated 17 July 1649 entitled An Act touching the monies and coins of England. A grain is 20 mites, a mite is 24 droits, a droit is 20 perits, a perit is 24 blanks.[20][21]
^Because an avoirdupois pound weighs 7000 grains and a pound weighs exactly 0.45359237 kg (see International Yard and Pound Agreement). Thus one grain weighs 453.59237/7 mg.
Referencesedit
^ abHallock, William; Wade, Herbert Treadwell (1906). Outlines of the Evolution of Weights and Measures and the Metric System. New York and London: The Macmillan Company. p. 34. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
^ ab"troy, n.2". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. June 2012. The received opinion is that it took its name from a weight used at the fair of Troyes in France
^Partridge, Eric (1958). "Trojan". Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. p. 3566. OCLC 250202885. …the great fairs established for all Europe the weight-standard Troyes, whence…Troy…
^Smith, L. Toulmin (1894). Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land Made by Henry Earl of Derby (afterwards King Henry IV.) in the Years 1390-1 and 1392-3. London: Camden Society. p. 100.
^ abWatson, Charles Moore (1910). British weights and measures as described in the laws of England from Anglo-Saxon times. London: John Murray. p. 82. OCLC 4566577.
^Wright, Joseph (1898). The English Dialect Dictionary. Vol. 6. Oxford: English Dialect Society. p. 250. OCLC 63381077.
^Smith, Adam (1809). An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Vol. 1. London: T. Hamilton. p. 35. The French livre contained, in the time of Charlemagne, a pound, Troyes weight, of silver of a known finess. The fair of Troyes in Champaign was at that time frequented by all the nations of Europe, and the weights and measures of so famous a market were generally known and esteemed.
^ abZupko, Ronald Edward (1977). British Weights and Measures: A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 28–9. ISBN978-0-299-07340-4.
^Kelly, Patrick (1811). The Universal Cambist and Commercial Instructor. Vol. 1. p. 20.
^Hallock, Wade (1906). Outlines of the evolution of weights and measures and the metric system. The Macmillan company. p. 119.
^"Troy Ounce". WordNet 3.0, Dictionary.com. Princeton University. from the original on 2008-02-26. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
^"Börse Frankfurt: Aktien, Kurse, Charts und Nachrichten". www.boerse-frankfurt.de. from the original on 1 November 2015. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
^"Units of Measure - The Perth Mint". from the original on 2015-09-24.
^"Do grams or ounces win?". from the original on 2016-05-06.
^ abc. Perth Mint. Archived from the original on 7 June 2019.
^National Institute of Standards and Technology (October 2011). Butcher, Tina; Cook, Steve; Crown, Linda et al. eds. "Appendix C – General Tables of Units of Measurement" 2016-06-17 at the Wayback Machine (PDF). Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices 2016-08-23 at the Wayback Machine. NIST Handbook. 44 (2012 ed.). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology. ISSN 0271-4027 2022-12-25 at the Wayback Machine. OCLCOCLC 58927093. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
^Judson, Lewis V. (March 1976) [October 1963]. . Weights and Measures Standards of the United States: A brief history(PDF). NBS Special Publication. Vol. 447. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards. p. 20. OCLC 610190761. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 June 2011. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
^"Consolidated TEXT: 31980L0181 — EN — 13.06.2020".
^A new English dictionary on historical principles: founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society. Philological Society (Great Britain). 1891. p. 675 – via Clarendon Press.
^Miege, Guy (1738). The Present State of Great Britain and Ireland. J. Brotherton, A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, G. Strahan, W. Mears, R. Ware, E. Symon, and J. Clark. p. 307.
November 02, 2023
troy, weight, system, units, mass, that, originated, 15th, century, england, primarily, used, precious, metals, industry, troy, weight, units, grain, pennyweight, grains, troy, ounce, pennyweights, troy, pound, troy, ounces, troy, grain, equal, grain, unit, av. Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th century England 1 and is primarily used in the precious metals industry The troy weight units are the grain the pennyweight 24 grains the troy ounce 20 pennyweights and the troy pound 12 troy ounces The troy grain is equal to the grain unit of the avoirdupois system but the troy ounce is heavier than the avoirdupois ounce and the troy pound is lighter than the avoirdupois pound One troy ounce oz t equals exactly 31 1034768 grams Troy ounce is a traditional unit of gold weight One troy ounce 480 gr 31 g samples of germanium iron aluminium rhenium and osmiumA Good Delivery silver bar weighing 1 000 troy ounces 83 troy pounds 31 kg Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 3 Units of measurement 3 1 Troy pound lb t 3 2 Troy ounce oz t 3 3 Pennyweight dwt 3 4 Troy grain 3 5 Mint masses 4 Conversions 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 ReferencesEtymology editTroy weight probably takes its name from the French market town of Troyes where English merchants traded at least as early as the early 9th century 2 3 The name troy is first attested in 1390 describing the weight of a platter in an account of the travels in Europe of the Earl of Derby 2 4 Charles Moore Watson 1844 1916 proposes an alternative etymology The Assize of Weights and Measures also known as Tractatus de Ponderibus et Mensuris one of the statutes of uncertain date from the reign of either Henry III or Edward I thus before 1307 specifies troni ponderacionem which the Public Record Commissioners translate as troy weight The word troni refers to markets Watson finds the dialect word troi meaning a balance in Wright s The English Dialect Dictionary Troy weight referred to the tower system the earliest reference to the modern troy weights is in 1414 5 6 Troy weight is a style of weighing like auncel or bismar weights or other kindred methods The troy weight then refers to weighing of small precious or potent goods such as bullion and medicines 5 History editThe origin of the troy weight system is unknown Although the name probably comes from the Champagne fairs at Troyes in northeastern France 7 English troy weights were nearly identical to the troy weight system of Bremen The Bremen troy ounce had a mass of 480 8 British Imperial grains 8 Many aspects of the troy weight system were indirectly derived from the Roman monetary system Before they used coins early Romans used bronze bars of varying weights as currency An aes grave heavy bronze weighed one pound One twelfth of an aes grave was called an uncia or in English an ounce Before the adoption of the metric system many systems of troy weights were in use in various parts of Europe among them Holland troy Paris troy etc 9 Their values varied from one another by up to several percentage points Troy weights were first used in England in the 15th century and were made official for gold and silver in 1527 1 The British Imperial system of weights and measures also known as Imperial units was established in 1824 prior to which the troy weight system was a subset of pre Imperial English units The troy ounce in use today is essentially the same as the British Imperial troy ounce 1824 1971 adopted as an official weight standard for United States coinage by act of Congress on May 19 1828 10 The British Imperial troy ounce known more commonly simply as the imperial troy ounce was based on and virtually identical with the pre 1824 British troy ounce and the pre 1707 English troy ounce 1824 was the year the British Imperial system of weights and measures was adopted 1707 was the year of the Act of Union which created the Kingdom of Great Britain Troy ounces have been used in England since the early 15th century and the English troy ounce was officially adopted for coinage in 1527 Before that time various sorts of troy ounces were in use on the continent 8 The troy ounce and grain were also part of the apothecaries system This was long used in medicine but has now been largely replaced by the metric system milligrams 11 The only troy weight in widespread use today is the British Imperial troy ounce and its American counterpart Both are currently based on a grain of 0 06479891 gram exact by definition with 480 grains to a troy ounce compared with 437 1 2 grains for an ounce avoirdupois The British Empire abolished the 12 ounce troy pound in the 19th century though it has been retained although rarely used in the American system Larger amounts of precious metals are conventionally counted in hundreds or thousands of troy ounces or in kilograms Troy ounces have been and are still often used in precious metal markets in countries that otherwise use International System of Units SI 12 13 except in East Asia 14 However the People s Bank of China has previously used troy measurements in minting Gold Pandas beginning in 1982 since 2016 the use of troy ounces has been replaced by integer numbers of grams Units of measurement edit nbsp Chart comparing the mass in grams of tower Troy merchant avoirdupois and London pounds Each colored block represents one of that system s ounces gold Troy blue avoirdupois purple tower Troy pound lb t edit nbsp The standard British troy pound manufactured in 1758 it bears the abbreviation pound and the letter T for troy The troy pound lb t consists of twelve troy ounces 15 and thus is 5760 grains 373 24172 grams An avoirdupois pound is approximately 21 53 heavier at 7000 grains and consists of sixteen avoirdupois ounces Troy ounce oz t edit A troy ounce weighs 480 grains 15 Since the implementation of the international yard and pound agreement of 1 July 1959 the grain measure is defined as precisely 64 79891 milligrams 16 C 19 17 Thus one troy ounce 480 grains 0 064798 91 grams grain 31 103476 80 grams Since the ounce avoirdupois is defined as 437 5 grains a troy ounce is exactly 480 437 5 192 175 or about 1 09714 ounces avoirdupois or about 9 7 more The Troy ounce for trading precious metals is considered to be sufficiently approximated by 31 10 g in EU directive 80 181 EEC 18 The Dutch troy system is based on a mark of 8 ounces the ounce of 20 engels pennyweights the Engel of 32 as The mark was rated as 3 798 troy grains or 246 084 grammes The divisions are identical to the tower system 19 Pennyweight dwt edit The pennyweight symbol is dwt One pennyweight weighs 24 grains and 20 pennyweights make one troy ounce 15 Because there were 12 troy ounces in the old troy pound there would have been 240 pennyweights to the pound mass just as there were 240 pennies in the original pound sterling However prior to 1526 English pound sterling was based on the tower pound which is 15 16 of a troy pound The d in dwt stands for denarius the ancient Roman coin that equates loosely to a penny The symbol d for penny can be recognized in the form of British pre decimal pennies in which pounds shillings and pence were indicated using the symbols s and d respectively Troy grain edit Main article Grain mass There is no specific troy grain All Imperial systems use the same measure of mass called a grain historically of barley weighing exactly 64 79891 milligrams a Mint masses edit Mint masses also known as moneyers masses were legalized by Act of Parliament dated 17 July 1649 entitled An Act touching the monies and coins of England A grain is 20 mites a mite is 24 droits a droit is 20 perits a perit is 24 blanks 20 21 Conversions editUnit Grains Grams exact Troy pound 12 troy ounces 5 760 373 24172 160Troy ounce 20 pennyweights 480 31 10347 680Pennyweight 24 1 55517 384Grain 1 0 06479 891English pounds Unit vte Pounds Ounces Grains MetricAvdp Troy Tower Merchant London Metric Avdp Troy Tower Troy Tower g kgAvoirdupois 1 175 144 1 21527 35 27 1 296 28 27 1 037 35 36 0 972 0 9072 16 14 7 12 14 583 15 5 9 15 5 7 000 0 9 955 5 9 454 5 11Troy 144 175 0 8229 1 16 15 1 06 64 75 0 853 4 5 0 8 0 7465 13 29 175 13 17 12 12 4 5 12 8 5 760 0 8 192 373 3 8Tower 27 35 0 7714 15 16 0 9375 1 4 5 0 8 3 4 0 75 0 6998 12 12 35 12 34 11 1 4 11 25 12 5 400 0 7 680 350 7 20Merchant 27 28 0 9643 75 64 1 171875 5 4 1 25 1 15 16 0 9375 0 8748 15 3 7 15 43 14 1 16 14 0625 15 6 750 0 9 600 437 7 16London 36 35 1 029 5 4 1 25 4 3 1 3 16 15 1 06 1 0 9331 16 16 35 16 46 15 16 7 200 10 240 467 7 15Metric 1 1023 1 3396 1 4289 1 1431 1 0717 1 17 64 16 08 17 15 7 716 10 974 500 1 2The troy system was used in the apothecaries system but with different further subdivisions See also editBullion coin Carat mass Conversion of units Fluid ounce Mark unit Tola unit United States customary unitsFootnotes edit Because an avoirdupois pound weighs 7000 grains and a pound weighs exactly 0 45359237 kg see International Yard and Pound Agreement Thus one grain weighs 453 59237 7 mg References edit a b Hallock William Wade Herbert Treadwell 1906 Outlines of the Evolution of Weights and Measures and the Metric System New York and London The Macmillan Company p 34 Retrieved 14 August 2012 a b troy n 2 Oxford English Dictionary Oxford England Oxford University Press June 2012 The received opinion is that it took its name from a weight used at the fair of Troyes in France Partridge Eric 1958 Trojan Origins A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English London Routledge and Kegan Paul p 3566 OCLC 250202885 the great fairs established for all Europe the weight standard Troyes whence Troy Smith L Toulmin 1894 Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land Made by Henry Earl of Derby afterwards King Henry IV in the Years 1390 1 and 1392 3 London Camden Society p 100 a b Watson Charles Moore 1910 British weights and measures as described in the laws of England from Anglo Saxon times London John Murray p 82 OCLC 4566577 Wright Joseph 1898 The English Dialect Dictionary Vol 6 Oxford English Dialect Society p 250 OCLC 63381077 Smith Adam 1809 An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Vol 1 London T Hamilton p 35 The French livre contained in the time of Charlemagne a pound Troyes weight of silver of a known finess The fair of Troyes in Champaign was at that time frequented by all the nations of Europe and the weights and measures of so famous a market were generally known and esteemed a b Zupko Ronald Edward 1977 British Weights and Measures A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century University of Wisconsin Press pp 28 9 ISBN 978 0 299 07340 4 Kelly Patrick 1811 The Universal Cambist and Commercial Instructor Vol 1 p 20 Hallock Wade 1906 Outlines of the evolution of weights and measures and the metric system The Macmillan company p 119 Troy Ounce WordNet 3 0 Dictionary com Princeton University Archived from the original on 2008 02 26 Retrieved 2008 01 10 Borse Frankfurt Aktien Kurse Charts und Nachrichten www boerse frankfurt de Archived from the original on 1 November 2015 Retrieved 28 April 2018 Units of Measure The Perth Mint Archived from the original on 2015 09 24 Do grams or ounces win Archived from the original on 2016 05 06 a b c Units of measure Perth Mint Archived from the original on 7 June 2019 National Institute of Standards and Technology October 2011 Butcher Tina Cook Steve Crown Linda et al eds Appendix C General Tables of Units of Measurement Archived 2016 06 17 at the Wayback Machine PDF Specifications Tolerances and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices Archived 2016 08 23 at the Wayback Machine NIST Handbook 44 2012 ed Washington D C U S Department of Commerce Technology Administration National Institute of Standards and Technology ISSN 0271 4027 Archived 2022 12 25 at the Wayback Machine OCLC OCLC 58927093 Retrieved 30 June 2012 Judson Lewis V March 1976 October 1963 8 Refinement of values for the yard and pound Weights and Measures Standards of the United States A brief history PDF NBS Special Publication Vol 447 Washington D C U S Department of Commerce National Bureau of Standards p 20 OCLC 610190761 Archived from the original PDF on 3 June 2011 Retrieved 30 June 2012 Consolidated TEXT 31980L0181 EN 13 06 2020 Kelly Patric 1835 Universal Cambist London A new English dictionary on historical principles founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society Philological Society Great Britain 1891 p 675 via Clarendon Press Miege Guy 1738 The Present State of Great Britain and Ireland J Brotherton A Bettesworth and C Hitch G Strahan W Mears R Ware E Symon and J Clark p 307 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Troy weight amp oldid 1179834524 Troy ounce oz t, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
