With the transition of all progressive mankind to the SI system, many ancient Slavic measures of weight and length gradually receded into the past. Among them, the spool is a measure of weight that has been actively used from the beginning of the eighteenth to the thirties of the twentieth century.
Spool - what is it
In the olden days, a spool was called a mass measure used to determine the weight of a metal (most often gold and silver). In relation to the gram used today, one spool weighed 4.3 grams or 1/96 of a pound (Russian).
The history of the appearance of a weight measure called a spool
Today, scientists cannot say for sure where the name of such a measure of weight came from as the spool. Presumably this name came from the time of Kievan Rus. It is well known that during the time of Prince Vladimir the Great (X century), one of the small princely gold coins was called the “goldman”.
Probably, later this coin began to be actively used as a weight when weighing products from precious metals. And gradually from the name of the coin got its name "spool" - a measure of weight used to determine the mass of a product made of precious metal.
The first written mention of the spool as a measure of weight dates from the 13th century. In one of his business documents, Prince Mstislav from Smolensk uses the word "spool" no longer as the name of a coin, but as a measure of weight. Probably, it was precisely at that period that the proportion of pure precious metal in a particular coin or other item made of gold and silver was measured using spools.
Over time, the popularity of the spool as a measure of weight has spread. And from 1711, the spool received the status of an official measure of the weight of not only gold and silver, but also other noble metals and was used until 1927.
There is also an alternative opinion that the word "spool" comes from the name of the metal of gold. However, this is unlikely, since a spool was also used to measure the weight of platinum and silver.
This measure of weight contributed to the emergence of the so-called spool system of samples, which was widespread in the Russian Empire.
Spool system
This system of samples made it possible to determine the presence of precious metals in a particular alloy, as well as their quantity. In other words, a sample of a precious metal (its purity) was helped to determine the spool. This measure of weight contributed to the formation of the spool gold sample, as well as the spool silver sample.
So pure gold without impurities (now 999 samples) was considered a precious metal weighing 96 spools. This meant that if the metal composition was taken as 100%, then all 100% gold. However, in the spool sample system, the maximum quantity was not 100%, but 96 units of precious metal. And if all 96 of them were gold - the metal was pure and had a sample of 96 (now 999).
The smallest spool breakdown was 56 (now 585), because it contains only 56 parts of gold, and other impurities of other metals. In ancient times, there were six spool gold samples.
Today, happy owners of gold jewelry of pre-revolutionary manufacture can notice on them the spool test of that period. To translate it into a modern system and find out the pure metal of a product, you can use the simplest formula: A / 96 * 1000 = B. In this case, A is a spool test, and B is modern.
The measurement of the purity of silver in spools was also not very different from gold. However, initially there were a larger number of samples of this metal - as many as nine (from 72 to 95). True, at the end of XIX they were significantly reduced to four (from 84 to 95).
As with gold, the spool of silver helped determine the number of shares of this metal in 96 units. Today, the pre-revolutionary spool silver test can be converted to the modern one using the same formula as with gold.
The ratio of the spool to other measures of weight in the old days
Spool - proportion: 1/96.
Pood - spool: 1/3840.
Lot - spool: 1/3.
Pound - Spool: 1/96.
Spool and modern weight measures
Compared to modern units of weight, one spool is approximately 4.3 grams (SI system).
According to the British pharmacy system, the weight of one spool is approximately 0.01143 troy pounds or 0.14 troy ounces.
Regarding the US weight system, one spool is approximately 0.151 ounces or 0.01 American pounds.
“Small spool, yes dear” and other sayings about this measure of weight
This measure of weight was quite popular among the ancestors, often say proverbs about it. For example, when they wanted to characterize a small, but very valuable thing, they used the proverb known from childhood.
There was also a slightly different analogue of it: "Small spool, but weighty."
There is another similar saying, also dedicated to small but important things. She more fully illustrated the principle: not size is important, but value.
To describe the value of health for a person, the following saying was used:
And the following proverb is devoted directly to the spool as a measure of weight:
Today, it has long been no longer in use to determine the purity of a sample of gold or silver spool. This measure of weight has become part of history. However, the word itself is now actively used in speech, although it has a slightly different meaning. Now the word "spool" has become the name of the dispensing part, but this is a completely different story.