drams, vials, and kilograms

[Orit]

I'm trying to understand how big a vial of TOHO seed beads is.
Googling for "dram" I see it is either a unit of volume or of weight, and they don't match (1/8 fluid ounce but 1/16 of an ounce of weight).  

If 50 vials are the same as a 1 kilogram bag of seed beads, that makes each vial contain 20 grams of beads (love the metric system).  Is that right?  Why not label them as such, then?  Every other bead store I've ever seen measures seed beads in grams.

Also, how many vials, approximately, are in the "full set" of TOHO seed beads (item 20-228-000)?

TIA,

Orit

[Polly]

Hi Orit,

Good questions. It's true, a dram is a strange unit of measure. And in the case of the 20-228 TOHO seed beads, a 4-dram vial holds almost exactly 20 grams of beads.
So why don't we simplify things and call them 20-gram vials?  It's because the contents are by volume rather than weight: we use the vial to scoop the beads, rather than weighing the 20 grams and then pouring them into the vial. They are surprisingly static-y little items, and they stick to the sides of our weighing utensils, so weighing them and scooting all the wayward into their proper home adds a lot of time & labor to (the prices of) each vial.

The 4-dram vial we use is our #63-100, and is approx 2" / 50mm tall x .75" / 23mm across.  

As of October 2007, there are 84 different colors of TOHO seed beads available in the full set.  This makes the vials in the full set, an average of $1.21 per vial (the colors range from .95 to 2.45 per vial).</font>

[Orit]

Thank you.

You might consider adding "drams" to your weights and measures page, and/or adding "approximately 20 grams" to the description of seed bead vials.

[daverobertson]

Hi Orit, good suggestion about adding drams to our units of measure page.  Thank you!

[Luann Udell]

You can add that thingie that cereal boxes have, "Box may not appear full as contents may have settled in handling", which always confused me!