Coin weights

Coin weights are weights used to weigh precious-metal coins in order to assure they were not underweight (It is easy to shave a bit of metal off the edge of a silver or gold coin).

[1] The usage of coin weights, especially glass ones, goes back to Ptolemaic and Byzantine times.

[1] Islamic coin weights were made of bronze, iron, and later glass (considered to be unalterable).

[1] They bear inscriptions related to Islamic rulers and moneyers and are therefore valuable epigraphical objects.

[3] Islamic coin weights were introduced to Great Britain in the 9-10th century CE through the Vikings.

An inscribed Islamic pound weight from 743. Made of glass, it is one of the oldest earliest Islamic dated objects in an American museum. In the collection of the Walters Art Museum