Nottinghamshire County Council is to sell 281 items from its metrology collection, including a wide range of weights, weighing scales, capacity measures and various other pieces of obsolete equipment, some dating back to the Victorian era.
Weights and measures inspections have been part of county council’s trading standards responsibilities since 1888. And Nottinghamshire County Council is still responsible for ensuring consumers get full litres of fuel, pints of beer, or grams oof fruit and vegetables.
Today, a range of modern and digital equipment enables officers to ensure consumers are getting the weight or measure they are paying for; and as a result the Council has built up a tressure trove of now obsolete equipment. And over the next year they will sell 281 items by auction.
“Many of the items are of significant local historical value, bearing inscriptions such as ‘The County of Nottingham’ and some have inspectors’ stamps from as far back as 1880”, Nottinghamshire County Council said in a statement. “The equipment itself is now obsolete for several reasons, including the shift from imperial to metric measures and advances in technology.”
Funds raised from the sales will be ploughed back to the trading standards’ budget which is used to protect residents against rogue traders, supporting businesses to enable them trade well and helping to manage the health and welfare of the county’s livestock.
Some items will be displayed in local museums, county buildings and archive collections across the county to give residents the opportunity to appreciate the craftmanship behind the historical items.
“We were aware that we had lots of old metrology equipment when we carried out a recent inventory of our storage space, however we didn’t expect to find such amazing collection of historic weights and measures”, the county’s deputy cabinet member for communities and public health, Cllr Gordon Wheeler, said. “There are so many wonderful looking items, including Victorian apothecaries’ weights, beam scales and egg grading poises, still in their original boxes.
“We are looking forward to being able to showcase some of these key artefacts to celebrate our local metrology history. And for antique collectors and enthusiasts, the future auction will give them a unique chance to purchase a bit of Nottinghamshire’s history.”
The county will provide details of the planned sales over the coming months.
