Long Hundred / Great Hundred

An old Germanic counting convention where a "hundred" officially meant 120.

Before decimal standardisation, the long hundred accommodated larger wholesale batches in the timber, fish, and nail trades by operating on a base derived from combinations of dozens and scores. The value varied by trade and by port to a degree that modern readers find startling. In West Cornwall a hundred of mackerel or pilchards was 120 fish, but a hundred of herring was 132; elsewhere in Cornwall a hundred of pilchards was 126, and in parts of Wales it ran to 123 or 124. The differences arise from how a catch was tallied: fish were thrown into piles with extra tally fish set aside at intervals, and whether that interval was every ten, every twenty or every forty fish determined the final figure. Twelve lots of ten with a tally fish each gives 132; six lots of twenty gives 126; three lots of forty gives 123.