Wooden box with coin scale and weights

The moneychanger was essential in commerce and finance, negotiating the exchange of coins, obtaining a legal profit for each change made. For the weighing, the moneychanger used a calibrated scale and some money or weights adjusted to those of the reference gold and silver coins with a facial image of them and an indication of their name. The purpose of the weighing was to check the accuracy and quality of the coin and, for this reason, the money had the minimum accepted weight. This box contains forty weighs for French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch and Spanish Netherlands coins.