[Avodah] Sheqel Kesef

[Zev Sero]

I would imagine that the invention of coins was soon followed by the 
invention of bad coins, and so the usual method of determining how much 
silver you had in a stack of coins was to weigh them rather than to 
count them.  Especially if you were supposed to be getting 400 of them 
-- if you did it by count, and each one was off by just 1%, you'd be 
losing four whole shekalim!


-- 
Zev Sero            “Were we directed from Washington when to sow
zev at sero.name       and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
		    –Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.