10 Penny Nails

[Omniscient]

This should be a quick one.

What does the measurement used for nails indicate, and why use the term penny?

Does the measurement describe the weight, length, head size, head type, circumference?

Any useless information about nals I should know while we’re at it?

[pluto]

Have you been visiting your local hardware store, Omni?

Webster’s, once again, says it is for a specified length. In the etymology it says the term is derived from the original price per hundred.

Turning over to the entry for tenpenny nail we discover that they are 3 inches long.

Sixpenny nails are “about two inches long”, while *eightpenny nails are “typically 2-1/2 inches long”.

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he sleeps on that pile/of newspapers/in the corner/and when he
takes off his/shoes you cannot/smell his breath
“king nicky”, archyology
Don Marquis

[tomndebb]

From http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictP.html :

-penny
an ending added to a number to indicate the size of a nail, as in “sixpenny nail” or “tenpenny nail.” It’s not clear exactly how this terminology began, although the usual guess is that tenpenny nails originally cost ten pence per hundred.
There is, very roughly, a linear relation between the size designations and length: an n-penny nail is roughly (1/2) + (1/4)n inches long. This makes the tenpenny nail about 3 inches long, the eightpenny about 2.5 inches, and so on.

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Tom~

[Ezstrete]

tomndeb are correct------the original expression was “ten a penny” or 'six a penny"—the number per penny was governed by the size.

[frolix8]

So 16 penny nails were cheaper than 8 penny?

That can’t be right. The cost per hundred makes sense.
The term also applies to many kinds of nails, common, box, finishing, casing, etc. which have different shapes, so a 12 penny box isn’t the same as a 12 penny common.

[Ezstrete]

For frolix

Point taken!