Monme (mon)

JapaneseTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

Exactly 3.75 g. A Japanese unit still used for pearls (where it is called momme) and for the weight of silk.

1 monme = 0.00375 kilograms (exactly).

About the monme

Monme takes its name from the weight of a single mon, the small copper coin of old Japan, so the word amounts to "mon weight". Edo-period merchants weighed silver in monme rather than counting it, and prices were quoted in silver monme until that system was abolished in 1868.

The Weights and Measures Act of 1891 fixed the monme at one thousandth of a kan, which is exactly 3.75 g, the figure used here. A modern Japanese 5 yen coin is often cited as weighing about one monme. Today the unit survives mainly in the pearl trade, where the spelling momme is common internationally and loose pearls and strands are weighed in it.

Silk is different: the textile momme is a separate convention of pounds per piece of cloth 45 inches wide and 100 yards long, so it should not be converted as a mass.

Sources: Wikipedia: Japanese units of measurement; Japanese Wikipedia: Monme; Wikipedia: Pearl; Wikipedia: Units of textile measurement

Monme conversion chart

1 monme expressed in every other weight & mass unit:

More Japanese units

• kin (weight & mass)
• kan (weight & mass)
• sun (length)
• shaku (length)
• ken (length)
• jō (length)
• chō (length)
• ri (Japanese) (length)
• gō (volume)
• shō (volume)
• tō (volume)
• koku (volume)
• jō (tatami mat) (area)
• tsubo (area)
• se (area)
• tan (area)

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