Token Great Britain Coin Weights for Portuguese Moidore

Today the world operates on fiat money. The reason a US 25 cent coin is worth 25 cents is because the government says so. (Scary, huh?) In the old days, before 1965, money was backed by precious metal, almost always gold and silver. The weight and purity of a coin used in trade was very important. Merchants sometimes used a balance and standard weights to determine if a particular coin was made of the proper amount of precious metal. The weights addressed by this page are for early money in Great Britain called moidore.

The word 'moidore' is a corruption of the Portuguese term 'moeda of ouro,' or, 'gold coin.' It became a standard of exchange in England during the early 1700s.

1 moidore = 10.7 grams = 27 shillings
1/2 moidore = 5.3 grams = 13 shillings 6 pence
1/4 moidore = 2.7 grams = 6 shillings 9 pence

The 'SD' annotation on the weights is for shillings and pence, with shilling abbreviated 's' and pence abbreviated 'd.'

Collecting these old weights is a pleasant pastime. Approximate catalog values run like this:

worn: $25 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $35
well preserved: $50

Use our Important Terminology page to properly understand catalog values.
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