Decided to stop at thrift store - my first Pewter

[ghh3rd]

It seems like I've seen lots of 'look at what pewter I found' posts, so I figured I'd post one too.

I stopped at the thrift store on the way home and look for pewter. I didn't expect to find any, but lo and behold, there was one piece... my first pewter find. It weighs 10.2 oz, says Woodburn Pewter on the bottom, and my pocket knife easily made a small deep scratch on the bottom. $2.16

I read that the alloys in pewter include antimony (5-6% in European pewter, only 1.5% in Asian pewter.) Seems that Woodburn Pewter is made in the USA, so I'm not sure what % antimony it contains, but whatever it has should help harden my alloy somewhat.

I'm not sure what percent tin this company uses (wish I knew), but I guess I'll treat it like pure tin and use it a little heavier than my usual 1.5%.

I figure 10.2 oz divided by 2% shows that it should alloy around 32 lbs of lead... or about 1,100 200gr .45 slugs. Now I just need my plumber friend to bring me another 12 lbs of lead to go along with the 20 he recently gave me :-).

177848

Randy

[Beagle333]

Nice find. I very very rarely find pewter in any of our Thrift stores. I somehow think they know what it is and pull it aside for sale elsewhere at a better rate.

[1988-4551]

Congrats, I started looking for it not too long ago but haven't found any since I started looking. One of those things I see the pics like the one you posted and used to think, yeah I see that stuff all the time...now that I check for it I don't find it.

[RogerDat]

Nice find. Steady looking makes for steady finding. It does go fairly fast I think. Some people collect it, people like you, me and the rest of us are looking for it in the same thrift stores too.

If you can find a way to hit the store on a regular basis over time it can add up. Lot of stops, sometimes long dry spells, then wham someone that decorated with pewter feeds a batch into the shelves at the thrift store. Bowl and pitcher, or plate and some candle sticks. Or a couple of bowls. Sooner or later you can get lucky if you are taking the time to be there to get lucky.

[jimb16]

I keep a bucket in the garage with 1/4 pound ingots of pewter in it. Whenever I happen to find pewter, I throw it into the same bucket until I get time to melt it down. I use pewter as though it were pure tin. Remember, COWWs already have some tin in them so I treat them as if they didn't have any tin. I may be using a tiny bit more tin than I need, but the bullets always cast nice and clean, so a little extra never hurts.

[jsizemore]

Looks a lot like Woodbury. Their touchmark is 2 concentric circles with Woodbury Pewterers Ct. between the 2 circles. The last time I had an XRF test done it was 95% Sn, 1.5% Sb, 3.5% Cu.

[R.Newman]

Nice find. my wife loves the thrift stores so two or three times a month I go with her and I check out all the metal I can find for hallmarks. I find quite a bit.Best find was a bunch of decorative plates from the 80s on 1/2 price day

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