Apothecaries' system measure precious metals and stones. (The troy pound was already declared illegal for most other uses by the Weights and Measures Act of 1878.) In the US, the metric system replaced the apothecaries' system in the United States Pharmacopoeia of 1971. Apothecaries' system The apothecaries' system or apothecaries' weights and measures is a historical system of mass and volume units that were used by physicians and apothecaries for medical recipes, and also sometimes by scientists. The English version of the system is closely related to the English troy system of weights, the pound and grain being exactly the same in
Precious metal the 99.999% pure one-ounce Canadian Gold Maple Leaf series, in 2007 the Royal Canadian Mint made a 100 kg 99.999% gold coin, with a face value of $1 million, and now manufactures them to order, but at a substantial premium over the market value of the gold. Gold and silver, and sometimes other precious metals, are often seen as hedges against both inflation and economic downturn. Silver coins have become popular with collectors due to their relative affordability, and, unlike most gold and platinum issues which are valued based upon the markets, silver issues are more often valued as collectibles,