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Description: | From the time of their reintroduction to Britain in 1817, sovereign and half-sovereign coins were made of gold. However, due to the nature of the metal, such coins became increasingly worn during circulation. As this reduced the coins' value, people used coin balances to check the weight of coins received. The balances were also used to guard against forgeries.This particular example dates to around 1830 and is made of brass. The coin to be weighed would have been placed in one of the slots on the right hand side, marked "Sovereign / Warranted" and "Sovereign / 1/2" respectively. This enabled the coin to be balanced against the fixed weight on the left, which is marked with the royal crown.
Three sovereign coin balances made from brass | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/ | Publisher: | Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service | Rights holder: | Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service | Subjects: | Miscellaneous Historical Objects Georgian period Weighing machines | Temporal: | 1820 - 1840
Georgian (1714-1837) | Source: | Black Country History | Identifier: | http://www.blackcountryhistory.org/colle... | Go to resource |
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