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The catty is traditionally equivalent to around 1 + 1 ⁄ 3 pound avoirdupois, formalised as 604.78982 grams in Hong Kong, [1] 604.5 grams historically in Vietnam, [2] 604.79 grams in Malaysia [3] and 604.8 grams in Singapore. [4] In some countries, the weight has been rounded to 600 grams (Taiwan, [5] Japan, Korea [6] and Thailand).
The tower pound displayed as the weight of a pound sterling of 240 early silver pennies (original pennyweight) A tower pound is equal to 12 tower ounces and to 5,400 troy grains, which equals around 350 grams. [30] The tower pound is the historical weight standard that was used for England's coinage. [31]
In the Middle Ages, an English penny's weight was literally, as well as monetarily, 1 ⁄ 20 of an ounce and 1 ⁄ 240 of a pound of sterling silver. At that time, the pound unit in use in England was the Tower pound, equal to 7,680 Tower grains (also known as wheat grains). The medieval English pennyweight was thus equal to 32 Tower grains.
This pound was progressively replaced by a new pound, based on the weight of 120 silver dirhems of 48 grains. The new pound used a barley-corn grain, rather than a wheat grain. [29] Avoirdupois (goods of weight) refers to those things measured by the lesser but quicker balances: the bismar or auncel, the Roman balance, and the steelyard. The ...
The only troy weight in widespread use is the British Imperial troy ounce and its American counterpart. Both are 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.
The avoirdupois weight system is thought to have come into use in England around 1300. [citation needed] It was originally used for weighing wool. In the early 14th century several other specialized weight systems were used, including the weight system of the Hanseatic League with a 16-ounce pound of 7200 grains and an 8-ounce mark.
Taiwan, like Korea, saw its traditional units standardized to Japanese values and their conversion to a metric basis, such as the Taiwanese ping of about 3.306 m 2 based on the square ken. The Hong Kong SAR continues to use its traditional units, now legally defined based on a local equation with metric units.
In Homer's poems, it is always used of gold and is thought to have been quite a small weight of about 8.5 grams (0.30 oz), approximately the same as the later gold stater coin or Persian daric. In later times in Greece, it represented a much larger weight, approximately 3,000 times as much: an Attic talent was approximately 26.0 kilograms (57 ...