If you’re walking up Nakamachi Street while you’re in Matsumoto, there’s a quirky little museum dedicated to all sorts of scales and weights that is fun to poke around in. The silkworm cocoon scales were especially interesting! The museum is made up of three separate buildings, but all together it’s quite small so you can check the whole place out in less than 30 minutes (plus it only costs 200 yen!). One of the nice things about the museum is that buildings consist of two beautiful, old kura-style warehouses and another equally beautiful wooden structured warehouse that was converted into a residence, so not only do you get to look at bunch of antique scales, but you can also admire the architecture of the museum itself.

As you would expect, there’s a big collection of scales and weights inside from the Meiji Period to the Showa Period, including some you can actually play around with (fun for kids too) as well as many uncommon scales. Originally, the building was the Takeuchi Weights and Scales Shop that operated from the early 1900s to the mid 1980s. After closing, the building and things inside were taken over Matsumoto City and turned into a museum.

The silkworm scale display features scales that were used to measure the weights of silkworm cocoons in order to figure out which ones were male and which ones were female. The instruments can detect very slight difference in weight down to the milligram. In the past, Nagano was one of the production areas for silk in Japan. The cocoon scale, which was developed in the Taisho Period (1912-1926) was sold at the Takeuchi Shop and was a popular product around Japan for silk producers.

The museum is 15 minutes from Matsumoto Station and about 10 minutes from Matsumoto Castle, and is located right in the center of Nakamachi Street.

Open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
Closed Mondays, unless its a national holiday.
Admission 200 yen for adults, free for junior high school students and under.