🔎 UNIDENTIFIED 20lb lead chunk

[humblecat]

Found this buried in the ground yesterday. It weighs over 19 pounds. It’s soft and scratches silver and is non magnetic. Has some kind of circle shape indented with what looks like threading. Maybe from a ship ? It was very close to the river.

 

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[humblecat]

That's quite the hunk of lead, and even if you were to sell it as lead you need to remove the iron pan/plate/pot from the piece. (pictures it looks like a pot)
Get a magnet test the piece that I referred to.

Now for it to be Low-alpha lead it has to meet a certain standard.
Most of that is lead that pre dates the 1800s
Have a read on this forum thread

Low-alpha / antiquity lead

Hi All, I am looking for antiquity or "low-alpha" lead. This lead would need to be from the early 1700's or even older. Most likely place to find it would be on ancient shipwrecks. Does anyone have access to this lead?

www.treasurenet.com

The thing is very few yards that buy scrap might of heard of low alpha lead.
Next thing is where to sell the item?
Before one sells the item is where to test the item?

Even if the item is in fact LAL(Low Alpha Lead) it's only 20 lbs, and that isn't high weight item to be messing with in the industry.
Not to throw water on the candle of hope here, it's just that when I owned a scrap yard and having inquiries of LAL here was my dilemma.
I called 5 brokers, all of them stated they didn't deal in it-didn't have a buyer for it.
Having a single item of metal that might be worth extra money is worth separating if there is a market for that metal.
If the buyer(me) doesn't have a buyer(broker), then that piece of metal is basically thrown into the barrel of other metals.
Scrap metal recycling is the 180 degrees from manufacturing.

Metal
Scrap yard(Might sell to bigger yard)
Broker(could go to another larger broker)
Foundry/mill
Distributer
Manufacturer

Wow thank you! I figured it’d be difficult if it was special. I guess it’s just be a scrap piece. Still money! And a curiosity for sure lol. I appreciate the time you took to answer. I will read that thread.
I’m just excited finding something so curious. My wife and I were like “what is this thing?” as we were digging it out lol. I love learning so I’m happy to find things that send me down a new learning path.
Treasure hunting is so fun already and I only just started!

 

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[pepperj]

Wow thank you! I figured it’d be difficult if it was special. I guess it’s just be a scrap piece. Still money! And a curiosity for sure lol. I appreciate the time you took to answer. I will read that thread.
I’m just excited finding something so curious. My wife and I were like “what is this thing?” as we were digging it out lol. I love learning so I’m happy to find things that send me down a new learning path.
Treasure hunting is so fun already and I only just started!

Just have to test to see if that piece is iron.
If it is then, remove it, because the item will be classified as irony lead.
Instead of a $1.00 a lbs
You're going get offered 10 cents a pound.

 

[humblecat]

Just have to test to see if that piece is iron.
If it is then, remove it, because the item will be classified as irony lead.
Instead of a $1.00 a lbs
You're going get offered 10 cents a pound.

It isn’t magnetic there. I feel like it’s an indent into the lead…

 

[Clay Diggins]

From the appearance it looks like waste from a babbitt metal bearing pour. From the size I'd guess it's probably from a large marine diesel.

 

[pepperj]

It isn’t magnetic there. I feel like it’s an indent into the lead…

Just give the spot a good scratch/file mark to make sure it's not another metal as copper/brass.

 

[pepperj]

From the appearance it looks like waste from a babbitt metal bearing pour. From the size I'd guess it's probably from a large marine diesel.

Babbitt is worth more than lead also.
I have my Babbitt in the display case.

 

[humblecat]

Babbitt is worth more than lead also.
I have my Babbitt in the display case.

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. I love all this treasure stuff. 😎😎