Lot (weight)

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The Lot was an old unit of mass used mainly in German-speaking states and in Scandinavia. It was replaced by the gram in the late 1800s in most places, and by the early 1900s it was mostly gone, though people still used it in cooking.

In the old system, 1 Lot was 1/32 of a Pfund and equal to 4 Quents, 16 Pfennig weights and 32 Heller weights. The weight of a Lot varied a lot by region and era, but it was usually about 14 to 18 grams.

In Prussia, a 1856 law set 1 Lot at 16.666 g and it also appeared in the silver fineness system. In northwestern Germany (Brunswick, Bremen, Hamburg, Hanover, Lübeck, Oldenburg, Schaumburg-Lippe) the Lot was defined differently as 1/10 of a Zollpfund, about 50 g. In other states the pound stayed divided into 32 lots.

Austria and Bavaria briefly used a metric Lot of 10 g, but this was repealed in 1888. Today, the metric Lot survives in Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland as the decagram (10 g).

A term Postlot appeared from 1858, used by the post office. The Lot also appeared in different forms in various regions, and its exact size changed over time.