We decided it was time to replace our bathroom scale that we've had here for almost twenty years. It is a dual scale system - but not "pounds and kilograms" as you might expect but "stones and kilograms," reflecting the British influence from WWI up until the mid 1950s. (There are fourteen pounds in a stone; how did our British friends ever come up with that one?)
Besides the kg dial being small and hard to read, the scale reads light by about three or four kg. Lets get modern!
I have blogged about "scale street" a couple of times previously - first in 2014 and then again in 2024.
Just off El Moez Street near Khan el-Khalili, lies a small street named Beet al Qadi; several shops selling scales can be found on this street and a bit farther up the hill. Here's the street - it is easy to miss the scale shops because of these interesting souvenir shops that dominate the opposite side of Beet al Qadi.
We stopped at one of the first scale shops when we saw a nice bathroom scale in the window and were greeted by the owner, Muhammad Al-Gazzar.
Muhammad was happy to pull the scale out of the box, check that their were batteries in it and let us try it out. We cheerfully bought it for 1050 Egyptian Pounds, about $21. It was made in China, of course, but with instructions in Arabic. There is no option for a readout in pounds, only kilograms but we can deal with that now that we can see the very visible reading on the unit.
It is quite an improvement since we no longer have to add three or four kilos before doing the conversion.
Stop by if you need a scale, and be sure to ask for Muhammad.
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2 comments:
Hi Tom! I found this on Brittanica.com: "tone, British unit of weight for dry products generally equivalent to 14 pounds avoirdupois (6.35 kg), though it varied from 4 to 32 pounds (1.814 to 14.515 kg) for various items over time. Originally any good-sized rock chosen as a local standard, the stone came to be widely used as a unit of weight in trade, its value fluctuating with the commodity and region. In the 14th century England’s exportation of raw wool to Florence necessitated a fixed standard. In 1389 a royal statute fixed the stone of wool at 14 pounds and the sack of wool at 26 stones. Trade stones of variant weights persist, such as the glass stone of 5 pounds. The stone is still commonly used in Britain to designate the weights of people and large animals."
Thanks, Aliza. There always seems to be interesting stories associated with British units.
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