"Space Cowboy" > wrote in
oups.com:

> A vendor on Ebay is listing some Puer in taels and not grams. One of
> the conversion sites gave 1.2oz or 37.5g for a tael. So is tael a
> Chinese, British or IM unit? If Chinese how common is it? Or is it
> some trading unit which I've never seen. It seems odd it isn't a
> multiple of oz or gram like a catty which is 500g.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
>

Tael is Chinese, a very old, varying weight & denomination of money both
(gold/silver in that weight). See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tael>, by
which a tael would be 37.5 or 37.8 g, depending on the location of the
vendor.

A catty is roughly half a kilo (now), but I think it's largely a
coincidence, because the catty (Jin) as a weight goes back to the Chou
period (see <http://www.charm.ru/library/faq006.htm>, "Gold scales in the
ancient China"

HTH, Ozzy