[Jewelry making - Article 00030] - Re: [Orchid] DWT not PWT

[John Donivan]

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    I didn't actually know this, but it piqued my curiosity: 

    I knew that we used an old fashioned weight unit, but I didn't know
    we used an "obsolete" unit every day!! 

    A pennyweight (dwt) is an obsolete unit of mass which is the same as
    24 grains, 1/240th of a troy pound, 1/20th of a troy ounce, or
    approximately 1.555 grams. A penny coin was literally, as well as
    monetarily, 1/240th of a troy pound of sterling silver. 

    The troy pound and the pennyweight lost their official status in the
    United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the Weights and
    Measures Act of 1878. Only the troy ounce and its decimal
    subdivisions remained legal after then, and even now in the 21st
    century the troy ounce enjoys a specific legal exemption from
    metrication in the UK. 

    Custom jewellers still use the pennyweight in their calculations for
    the necessary amount of precious metals in casting items using the
    lost wax process. 

    While "dwt" is the most common abbreviation for pennyweight (as "d"
    was the abbreviation for "penny" in the pre-decimalisation British
    system), some sources list "pwt" as an alternative. 

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com

 
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