Practical guide to the calculation of the value of gold and silver of any purity, intended for merchants, mint masters and others who deal with precious metals. The author notes that there is "now" a great deal of low grade gold and silver on the market (below 20 carat and 10 penningen respectively, i.e. below 83 1/3 %), and that previously published guides did not cover these in a convenient manner. He therefore first explains how these metals are weighed in the Netherlands, presenting the units of weight and their relations, and gives instructions for using the tables, with examples. Once one has weighed the gold or silver and assayed it to give the purity in carats/mark or penningen/mark respectively, the tables on pp. 1-223 and 225-395 tell the weight of fine metal in a given weight of impure metal. Once one knows the weight of fine gold or silver, one can look up its value in guilders in the tables on pp. 224 and 396-447.
Grill was himself an assayer. In 1715 he published his tables for gold alone, also sold by Van Eyl, and the present tables for gold and silver probably followed soon after. The heaviest weight listed for both gold and silver is 100 marks (so that the tables could be used without multiplication for weights up to 200 marks), but for silver in four degrees of purity, a contemporary owner has inserted manuscript tables for weights up to
4000 marks.
In very good condition. A rare and valuable window into trade in precious metals in the early 18th-century Netherlands. STCN (5 copies); not in Hoover; Kress.