Weight...What????

So many of us have heard the old joke what weights more a pound of feathers or a pound of something??? Now there are commercials that are addvertizing things like whats heavier, a lb of gold or a lb of feathers?. Most people right off the bat answer this thinking a pound s a pound, which seems like a very plausable answer I mean 1 pound should be equal to 1 pound makes sense. In reality for most things this is a correct statement, but in the case of precious metals, this is in fact a false statement. When talking about precious metals, a different weighing scale is used. The standard Avoirdupois scale is used when weighing standard things like feathers, tables, chairs etc.... This is a system based off 16 oz. or 454.6 grams. When dealing with precious metals the Troy scale is used which is based off of 12 oz. or 373.24 grams. This is a common misnomer when dealing with weght. In this context 1 Avoirdupois pound is equal to 1.21 Troy pounds. Moral of the story I guess is the next time someone asks a what weights more question try not to be to hasty to answer because the 1 pound equals 1 pound answer may just be wrong (even though its on T.V.)