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A Large Pole Weighing Scale With Weight
This is a wooden 'steelyard' style scale, popular with local shopkeepers for weighing bags of rice etc and also in the tin mines for tin ore. For shop use there would often be a hook or ring set into the beam above the footpath in the 5-foot way to hang the scale when in use. A particular use relating to the Kinta Valley was the weighing of tin ore by Chinese tin buyers as a picul of tin in the Kinta Valley and in other Malay States was heavier than a picul of tin in the Straits Settlements. This allowed the shrewd Towkay to swindle his coolies until 1893 when the government finally aligned weights and measures to the Straits standards.
The hook and ring are both iron as is the weight, but the latter has lead enclosed by a sealed brass disc at the bottom to allow for adjustment by the weights and measures inspectors. The pole was certified by the Department of Weights and Measures in 1951 and marked PK for Perak. The weight is similarly certified in Perak in 1950. It weighs about 3kg (and is probably actually 5 Katis).
The steelyard is graduated to weigh from 20 to 200 Katis. Along both sides of the pole are graduations marked by very small brass nails driven into it. There are protective brass caps at each end of the pole. The length of the pole is 141cm.
A Kati equals 16 Tahils (or taels), that is, about 1 1/3 lb. avoirdupois or 625 grammes and 100 katis make a pikul, or picul, literally 'a load'.