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Hundredweights, Quarters, and Pounds, Oh My!
January 20, 2013
3:32 am
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Lee Cordochorea
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We were discussing anvil weight nomenclature today.

A "hundredweight" is 112 pounds. A "Quarter" is 28 pounds. A "pound," of course, is one pound. Anvils were once marked with the first number designating hundredweights, the second number designating quarters, and the third designating individual pounds.

But none of us there knew where the terms came from. Why was the hundredweight not 100 pounds?

So I did some digging on the net this evening. I learned that the British were a stubborn folk. They were fond of using "stones" (14 pounds) and "cloves" (7 pounds), and wanted the hundredweight to be eight stones, or sixteen cloves.

The French of the 14th century preferred to use a unit of 100 "livres" (100 Roman pounds). But the French did not win at Crecey, at Poitiers, or at Agincourt. The English kept the 112 pound hundredweight in place up through the 19th century.

No matter where you go... there you are.

January 21, 2013
8:57 pm
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Eric Sprado
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Thanks Lee: I LOVE trivia! Absolutely love it!!!!!!!

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