Talk:Millesimal fineness

by mass / by volume
The reader will infer that 12 carat gold has by volume 50% gold and 50% alloy, yet that would be incorrect. From the formula 24 (Mg/Mtotal) it is clear that 12 carat gold is less than half gold by volume. The article would be improved if it were to point that out and give the true figures

Michael O'Hagan

Clarified; yet, I hesitated to edit the part referring to Millesimal fineness. In the section: "For example, an alloy containing 75% gold is denoted as "750".", is the 75% by mass or volume? Someone please make this part clearer. Rfts (talk) 04:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

990 = 23 carats: dubious
I fail to see how 99% = 23/24. jnestorius(talk) 04:43, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Older Scales
Millisimal fineness replaced a number of older roman weight-fractions, usually fractions as weights of the pound.

Gold was based on the number of carats and grains in the solidus (or metcal). The carat is the carob seed, rated as 144 to the Roman ounce. 1 (solidus) = 24 carats; 1 carat = 4 grains.

In England, Silver was based on ounces and pennyweights in the pound, This going back as far as Offa's penny, 240 making the tower pound. 1 (pound) = 12 ounces; 1 ounce = 20 dwt.

In Germany, silver was based on the loth, 1 (mark) = 16 loth. Gold was based as in England.

Note because the solidus disappeared from use, one finds references to 1 (pound) = 24 carats; 1 carat = 4 grains. These make the units some 72 or 96 times larger than they really were (6 to the oz: 12 or 16 oz to the pound).

References - W.S.B.Woolhouse "Measures, Weights and Moneys of All Nations" 1891. This uses the english systems without references to the thousandth unit. --Wendy.krieger (talk) 10:30, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

purest type of gold in the market
How does this stuff rate?

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/326542?lang=en&region=GB

©Geni 18:39, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

OR even 99.9999%:

http://212.172.204.219/abcrestore/product_information.aspx?product_id=60097&second_id=60097&nav=search

©Geni 18:43, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

proposed merge / move
There is also an article fineness, which is sort of a stub as it stands now. The interesting information is mostly here. How about concentrating on an article named "fineness" as the general term, with subsections for the different notations that have traditionally been in use. "Millesimal fineness" would be the biggest section at the moment with this article being merged there. As the article says, national mints have been producing gold and silver coins with 4N or 5N fineness for quite some years now. But what it omits is the fact that they write 9999 or 99999 on them, and not 999.9 or 999.99. So strictly speaking the fineness is not millesimal anymore nowadays. --BjKa (talk) 10:25, 23 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Support merge/move. Millesimal (parts per thousand) is only one way of expressing the fineness; others are percentage or fractional part with an implied leading decimal point. For example the Perth Mint has a page on their website describing Purity, which includes columns Percentage (eg 99.99%) and Fineness (eg 9999). Mitch Ames (talk) 03:45, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Support merging Millesimal fineness, Fineness, and Karat into one article called Fineness (with redirects). There is nothing inherently millesimal about fineness and there is always some disagreement over how to spell carat/karat. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:44, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I will do the merge soon as no one seems to have objected in several months. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:05, 14 February 2015 (UTC)