Tríkala, Market Scale

We shopped the many little tourist and antique stores in Métsovo, but while there were plenty of nice things for sale, the only thing we bought was an old market scale that I liked! Usually a market scale has a long horizontal bar and a weight is moved along the bar to determine the weight of the purchase. This one is different since the bar, which has a heavy lump of brass on one end, is itself moved, rather than moving a weight on the bar.

The weight system is not pounds or metric, but must be the old Ottoman (Turkish) weight and measure called the “Oke.” One Oke is 400 Drams. The scale can weigh up to 6 Oke, with each Oke marked for 100, 200, and 300 Drams. An Oke is equal to 2.822 pounds in Greece, 2.826 pounds in Turkey, and 2.751 pounds in Egypt (according to Encyclopedia Americana). There must be a dozen definitions of, or measurements that use the word Oke. This scale has the date “1938,” stamped to indicate it was approved as accurate.

The very next day, as we walked in the street market in Tríkala, I discovered that some “new” thingamajigs quickly become a fad. Yesterday I bought the very first scale I had ever seen of a particular design, but already today we find several old women in Tríkala’s marketplace using the same, or a similar scale. Boy, some things catch on fast, don’t they.