old lead??

[whitesid]

i have a bottle dump by my house that i was recently digging. i found the obvious bottles. but i also found about a pound of old lead. i know that its at least from the 1930's most likely 1920's. i herd that old lead is worth more then the newer stuff. is that true and if it is buy how much?
thanks,
whitesid

 

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[aa battery]

Old lead is worth more but i dont know why.My cousin turns in my scrap for me and hes the one that told me.I wonder how many people pass up old lead and dont collect it. 8) AA

 

[Ascholten]

as far as recycling goes, lead is lead is lead, the junkyard really don't care and will probably give you the same price for it.

The reason 'old' lead is more valuable than new lead is because back then, the 20's etc silver was dirt cheap, and they really didn't bother wasting the time and effort refining it out of the lead very effectively. Given this, the old lead might have a significant silver content in it as well. I have heard some say that the old lead can sometimes have up to a 20 percent silver content in it. You can use zinc to recover it in a retort if you are so inclined since the silver will have a greater affinity for zinc than the lead.

Aaron

 

[skippy]

I was under the belief that old lead was much more valuable because any radioactivity in the lead has decayed and that makes it suitable for certain high tech / research applications. Old lead might have some silver too - but probably not enough to explain the value of old lead.

 

[Ascholten]

Who told you that skippy? Just curious.

There shouldn't be any radiation in the lead to begin with. I mean think about it, as anal as the american govt is about radiation, and with people looking to sue for any little thing they can nowadays to make a buck, do you really think they'd have radioactive lead floating around. someone would have picked up on that long ago and you'd have another super fund clean up going on.

The purity thing might be valid, as much of the newer lead today is not pure, but mixed with antimony and other metals... wheel weights come to mind.... because of the lead scare. For high grade research they are going to be using 'new' 'super refined' lead anyways and not just remelting something and selling it as is Id think.

 

[Ineptwizard]

The problem with radioactive lead is when it is used to solder integrated circuits . The lead may give off alpha particles that can cause some types of sensitive chip to have erratic operations.
I was researching one day and came across that info . It was related to scrap prices on metals.
The primo lead comes from old roman lead piping. And the prices are very high because the natural radiation has been decreasing since it was smelted. There is a strong market for lead that can be documented as ancient. This solder is used in the very highest end products like space-craft and high speed computers .

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Low alpha lead sheathing
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,15932.0.html

antiquity lead
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,15932.0.html

pre 1940 lead
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,51688.0.html