It may seem like an impossible task to gauge the weight of something without a scale. For instance, how heavy is 10 grams actually? It’s the same as 0.35274 ounces, but that doesn’t help much. To get a better idea of how heavy 10 grams is, you can use everyday objects as references.
Here’s a list of things that weigh 10 grams or close:
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 2 A4 sheets
- 4 ping pong balls
- Poker chip
- Domino
- AAA battery
- Empty soda can
- 10 US bills or 2 nickels
- 2 ChapStick tubes
1. 2 Teaspoons of Salt
Salt is one of the OGs in the seasoning world. For many of us, the only seasoning you need on a steak is salt and pepper. As common as this substance is, the harvesting process can be quite meticulous. Traditional methods involve shallow ponds filled with saltwater, where the water evaporates and leaves salt in its wake.
You can find all kinds of salt on the market, but you probably have regular table salt lying around. Get your measuring spoon set and scoop 2 teaspoons of salt. With each teaspoon weighing 5.69 grams, 2 teaspoons will yield slightly more than 10 grams.
2. 2 A4 Sheets
Regular printing paper is a piece of engineering ingenuity. About 2,000 years ago, Ancient Chinese inventors invented the grandfather of paper, which was made of cloth sheets. Today, printing paper is made of wood, rice, or wheat pulp.
Since the world uses roughly 65 billion sheets of paper every day, there’s a good chance you have some lying around somewhere. However, make sure it’s A4 paper—not letter or legal paper—if you want to see what 10 grams feels like. In fact, you’ll need 2 of them since each will weigh about 5 grams.
3. 4 Ping Pong Balls
Ping pong goes by many names. It’s also known as table tennis, whiff waff, parlour tennis, and even pim-pam. Regardless of what you call it, ping pong is an intense sport that involves 2 people swinging tiny paddles to hit a tiny ball over a net. Imagine tennis but, well, in table form.
The ball is 1.57 inches in diameter, usually made of plastic, and weighs 2.7 grams. If you can hold 4 of these balls in your hand at the same time, you’re holding only a sliver more than 10 grams.
4. Poker Chip
There are several reasons casinos use chips in place of actual cash. One of the most sinister reasons is incentivizing players to bet big. After all, a small stack of chips looks and feels a lot different from its cash value. There are also security reasons, such as reducing the risk of miscalculating how much you’ve earned or lost in a hand.
If you’ve been bitten by the gambling bug, then you probably know everything about poker chips, including its weight. Poker chips generally weigh between 8-1/2 and 10 grams, but there may be variations between casinos.
5. Domino
The origin of dominoes is questionable, but it can clearly be traced to at least 12th-century China. This simple yet highly addictive game involves numbered tiles, where players have to create a chain by linking their tiles with identical numbers to the tiles in play.
Modern dominoes are made of plastic, which is a far cry from its original materials (bone, wood, or ivory). Most domino tiles weigh 8 grams, which is practically a mosquito’s wing shy of 10 grams. If you play with paperboard dominoes for the satisfying slap on a flat surface, you might need between 3-5 of them to reach 10 grams.
6. AAA Battery
Batteries are portable sources of power. They require a chemical reaction in order to store the electricity within, which is used to power all sorts of devices. The smaller the battery, the less power it provides. That’s why smaller electronics require smaller batteries, such as size AAA.
Take a battery out of your TV’s remote control and weigh it. If it uses AAA batteries, it should be around 11-1/2 grams. If you only have AA batteries on hand, imagine halving its weight since each weighs around 23-24 grams.
7. Empty Soda Can
Back in the 1930s, the soft drink world was revolutionized by the introduction of steel soda cans. It would take more than 3 decades for drink manufacturers to switch from steel to aluminum. Today, canned beverages are commonly sold in 12-ounce cans measuring about 2-1/4 × 6-1/8 inches.
Head to your recycling bin and pull out an empty soda can. It should weigh around 14 grams, which is pretty close to 10 grams. You can also try halving the weight of an empty 2-liter soda bottle (about 26 grams).
8. 10 US Bills or 2 Nickels
The birth of paper currency in the US took place in 1690. A lot has changed since then, with the dollar banknote shrinking to its modern size in 1969. Now, these bills have more security features than one might initially imagine. We’re talking microprinting, 3D ribbons, and watermarks, just to name a few.
If you’d like to feel 10 grams in your hand, pull out 10 bills from your wallet. It doesn’t matter what denomination it is since each weighs roughly 1 gram. Alternatively, if you have a Sacagawea dollar coin, one of them should suffice (about 8.1 grams). If you want to be even more accurate, use 2 nickels (5 grams each).
9. 2 Chapstick Tubes
Nobody likes chapped lips, especially in the winter where the freezing temps can cause lips to feel drier than normal. Luckily, there’s a solution to this problem: ChapStick! This is a brand of lip balm that is specifically formulated to combat dried lips. They’re sold in tube form and are available in drug store and supermarkets.
A single tube of ChapStick weighs about 4 grams. This includes the lip balm, so if you used any of it before, then you may be under by a few milligrams. Either way, 2 of them should get you pretty close to 10 grams.
