“Loaf” presents us with a little mystery.  Thorin says that the Lake-men will not get “even a loaf’s worth” of treasure.  Does he mean “the value of a ‘prized-loaf’ (obsolete, an official assized bread-price)” or “a pile of coins the weight of an ‘assize-loaf’ (obsolete, an official assized weight of bread)?

• 06.100 though really he would have liked a loaf
• 07.116 he had eaten two whole loaves
• 09.063 carrying a loaf
• 15.050 not even a loaf’s worth,

“loaf, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 13 May 2015.

Update 2016.05.18: It is not impossible that I, Dear Readers, when searching through my word-hoard for this word lit on a sufficient substitute: “skein”.