Historical information

This item was purchased from the auction house Leski's. It was to be included in a Medical collection auction on 8 May 2013 but was left off the listing. Museum Curator made a private offer of $160 prior to the auction which the owner accepted. The weighing scales was part of a rare collection of medical, dental and pharmaceutical objects belonging to a tourism business, Kryal Castle, near Ballarat, Victoria from 1974. At some point,apparently, an officer manager discarded the museum records, so the provenance of the weighing scales, and many other items in the Leski auction, has been lost.

Physical description

This weighing scales is made of yellow painted metal, with a slide gauge in imperial measure. Manufacturer: Secal.Vogel & Haike, Hamburg [nameplate at front].Manufactured in the the , and such scales were widely used in Infant Welfare Centres across Victoria and possibly other states in the 1970s. A midwife/ infant welfare nurse Martine Jackson recalls seeing a weighing scales like this as a student in the 1970s in Melbourne.