A cased set of coin scales, Germany or Low Countries, dated 1628

the fruitwood case punched with foliate pen and pokerwork patterns and borders, the interior fitted with a portable steel balance with one circular and one triangular brass pan, named compartments and a quantity of stamped square brass weights including types for English, Scottish, French, Spanish and other gold coins, some dated 1602 and 1615 and a small sliding compartment with smaller gauge weights, the exterior with a shallow drawer containing further weights

This may have acquired by the 6th or 7th Baronets as a curio, particularly given their backgrounds in banking;
at Fettercairn House before 1902

Lady Jane Grey Forbes Trefusis, Happy Hours in a Scottish Home, Edinburgh, 1902, pp. 33-34; 'What a fascination night prowls have for one.. In this quaint house, where sitting-rooms and bedrooms are on one floor, one can creep along easily; and when all regulated people are in dreamland, I often go and hunt among the cupboards and unused rooms, and have found many treasures, which one would not have seen in the glare of daylight. One of my midnight prizes is a charming old box, half painted and inlaid with the date 1623 [sic], containing the daintiest scales and weights'.

Generally in very good order. Some bruising to details, including the inked date. Typical old marks and scratches. Some metal components with wear. The scale with a bent needle. It could be that some of the very smallest weights are lacking although this is very hard to tell. It is a lovely object and the case a really nice colour,
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Quite often these sets of scales were made in the Low Countries for use all over Europe by merchants, the gold coin to be tested being put in one pan and the appropriate weight in the other, fractional weights being added to check the degree of clipping which had occurred (people would regularly try to clip, scrape or 'sweat' little bits of gold off coins to make a profit; it’s why £1 and £2 coins have milled and lettered edges even today).