“We Buy Metric Gold…Other Systems Need Not Apply”

Throughout history, one of the reasons that some have resisted standardization of measurements systems has been the potential to cheat others out of their money. Going back to the days before the almost unilateral adoption of the metric system in all but three countries (the United States, Burma and Liberia, cough, cough) having a plethora of measurement systems meant confusion abounded and merchants realized that there was profit to be made out of that confusion.

While this certainly was true when various measurements had differing names, as in perhaps my “merkel” was the same as your “ibitz,” however, in other situations my inch and your inch might not be the same amount even though we were both using the same word—certainly confusing. Merchants routinely took advantage of people’s lack of understanding of these measurement systems to give them less than they thought they were paying for. In fact, some buyers carried around their own calibrated weights just to ensure others weren’t taking advantage of them. Remember, early weight systems relied on balance scales, unlike today. It’s also not an accident that the “scales of justice” refer to just such a trust being upheld.

Unfortunately, our U.S. customary units continue to perplex. Let us consider the ounce. As I’ve gone around talking to people about the project, one of the things that I’ve asked them is “How many ounces do we have?” At first, some people look at me quizzically, then I go on to hopefully illuminate that in the United States we currently have two different ounces: the avoirdupois and the Troy. The avoirdupois ounce is the one that we use on a routine basis. However, even this is complicated because the avoirdupois ounce represents both a weight (16 ounces in a pound) and a volumetric (8 ounces in a cup) measurement. (By the way, I’ve come across some really horrendous pronunciations of avoirdupois, including the Merriam-Webster online dictionary—which surprised me. Having taken some French in college, the pronunciation that I use can be found at this link http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=avoirdupois.)

Most people use the avoirdupois ounce every day of their lives without realizing that that’s what they’re doing. Now let’s move on to the Troy ounce. It is a measurement that is used almost exclusively for weighing precious metals. So, for all those folks who have responded to the “We buy gold” come-ons, how do they know they’re getting the right amount of money if they don’t even understand the measurement system being used?

So, here’s how it breaks out:

1 Avoirdupois Ounces equals to 0.911458333452 Troy Ounces (from this site http://www.unitsconversion.com.ar/)

So the Troy ounce is actually slightly less than avoirdupois ounce.

However, a gram is a gram is a gram. So if we all go metric we get out of all this ridiculous “which ounce are we talking about?” business and then you just have to worry how accurate this guy’s (or gal’s) scale is.

If it were me in this gold-selling situation, I’d insist that the measurement be in grams (most scales can switch back and forth) and compare a couple of different people’s scales. (The right kind, of course. Your kitchen scale is not precise enough for this task.) Yes, they should be calibrated but when was it last done on that scale? And while you might not think a gram is that much when you’re weighing flour in your kitchen, when we’re talking gold, we’re talking about $50 a gram.

Sometimes what you don’t know can hurt you—and not just financially.

Linda