Very flattering indeed has been the success of the fishermen; and many boats have come in loaded, averaging thirty or forty crans each (every cran estimated at 1,000 herrings), and disposed of their cargoes at nine shillings per cran; but the price has been since raised to fifteen shillings.
1817, Isle of Man Tynwald, An Act for the better Regulation of the Herring Fishery, etc., from The Lex Scripta of the Isle of Man, published 1819, pages 533–534:
… all Fresh Herrings which shall be bought and sold … shall be by the measure commonly called the Cran or Half-Cran; and that the Cran to be used for the purchase and sale of fresh Herrings as aforesaid, shall be the contents or capacity of forty-two Gallons English Wine Measure, reckoning from the outermost extremities of the staves … the Half-Cran shall be twenty-one Gallons English Wine Measure …
Ullapool, Aug. 8th, 1818.—The herring fishery within this district has turned out well. At Loch Esbrekie, boats are catching each from two to 16 crans per night of herrings, from 700 to 800 the packed barrel. Price per cran, 12s. 6d.
Each boat is under an engagement to some merchant, to furnish a certain number of crans or barrels of herrings (about two hundred and fifty), for which they received last year 10s. per cran.
Copy presented, of Regulations made by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries under the Act, for the making, examination, verification, and branding or marking of Quarter-Cran Measures for use in buying, selling, delivering, or receiving fresh herrings in any place in which the Act is in force…
You come up to the quay and you tie up, now there’s everyone come, you see. Hundred cran, cor, lovely shot, get your sample out, let’s be selling ‘em, you see, and you just lean back in the wheelhouse and you look.
1960, Ewan MacColl, ibid.:
…And fish the knolls on the North Sea Holes And try your luck at the North Shields Gut With a catch of a hundred cran.