Sold for A$95
Banjo Opium Scales, Brass Tray and Weight, Bone Sliding Scale. Wooden Case.. Chinese. Scales. Banjo Opium Scales, Brass Tray and Weight, Bone Sliding Scale. Wooden Case. About 310 mm long. Late 18th to 19th Century.
Good. (N/A). No clamp on the shaft to keep the two sections together. Quite discoloured. Quite grimy inside around the tray as well. Some knocks and flakes to the wood in places. The vendor has collected any of these available from the Ballarat region over the past 40 years. They were reviewed by a Chinese scholar who suggested they were late 18th to 19th Century and originally used to weigh opium shipped by merchants contracted to the British East India Company. Useful items that ultimately found their way to the Ballarat Goldfields with the influx of Chinese miners from the 1850s onwards. Sometimes referred to as opium scales, but also known as gold scales. Estimate: $40-60
