17th-century Coin-changing Set With Scale And Balance Box

Weighmaster’s trébuchet scale by Mathieu Clot, Rue Tupin in Lyon—dated to the second half of the 17th century

Brass pans of the “domed-hole” type, a wrought-iron beam adorned with a fleur-de-lis and a broken pointer in the first third of the yoke (the part of the trébuchet that the money changer holds during weighing).

The scale operates by finding the balance between the currency being weighed and the appropriate counterweight of the currency in circulation in the foreign country.

Two weights and the grains are missing

The city of Lyon was renowned as a major center for the production of monetary scales, some of which were manufactured on Rue Tupin (which still exists today). The scales’ pans bear Mathieu Clot’s hallmark featuring a star, a hallmark used beginning in 1668.

Bibliography:
-Daniel Bornemann, “A Monetary Scale from 1680,” La revue de la BNU [online], 11/2015
-Bulletin de la Société Métrique de France, “French Manufacturers of Coin Weighing Boxes or Coin Scales,” 1st quarter 2006, p. 1909