Pewter pictures and hallmarks...

[imashooter2]

Dang it, I forgot about this thread for the past year or so and have found around 70lbs of pewter that I should have recorded the hallmarks on here but forgot... Sorry Dale!

What got me thinking of this thread was, I found a plate in a thrift store today that didnt say pewter but I remembered the hallmark of the angel... Its the same plate as in one of the posts here.

I will start taking pics first instead of crushing and melting so the wife doesnt say "hey that's nice" she got a few that way before I started bending or crushing as soon as I paid for them.

Doc

No worries Doc! I've had some luck recently, but new hallmarks are getting few and far between. Lots and lots of the same old stuff. Royal Holland and International are the big hitters.

My big find of the year so far was a cup this week, Salisbury Pewter, 5.5 oz for a quarter.

Not a lot of weight, but 73 cents a pound isn't too shabby.

[hickfu]

Todays haul:



Todays weight:



Last weeks haul:



Last weeks weight:



Total spent.... 34.00 A bit high for normal but I think the thrift stores are getting wise to the price of pewter as I have to keep talking them down where as I used to go in and find it marked cheap.

I will post pics of hallmarks as soon as my phone charges more so I can take some pics..
I need to melt down all the crushed stuff I have as well... about 40 to 45lbs and I still have around 13lbs that I have left from melting before.

Doc

[imashooter2]

Nice! The Goodwill Shops around here are pretty much the only thrift store, but they are all trying to transition to "boutiques."

[jsizemore]

Nice! The Goodwill Shops around here are pretty much the only thrift store, but they are all trying to transition to "boutiques."

I've found the same in my area. The folks that put a price on items check ebay. Even the flea markets in my area have gone above scrap price.

[Sekatoa]

This weekends flea market fines.

Genuine Fine Pewter Handcrafted in Sheffield England, the other English Pewter Sheffield Vineyards; not sure if there's a difference in the quality.
The big one I have not seen before. I did a search here and didn't see one either. It's stamped Americana Pewter and numbered.

About the same as last week. 2.5 lbs, paid $7 total. I could live that being the usual finds every week or two.

[imashooter2]

Put that 97% Royal Selangor tea set from post 369 into ingots this week. Man that is some purty stuff! Gotta wear shades to keep the glare from blinding you.

Picked up a bit more weight, nothing new except these two 9.5 inch tall covered pitchers. The skinny one is 1 pound 1 ounce and the fat one is 1 pound 4 ounces. Interesting German hallmarks on them.

[imashooter2]

Hey Sekatoa, that's good weight for 3 mugs and not a bad price either! Hope you won't mind, but I took the liberty of doing a little enhancement on your hallmark photo. Thanks for posting!

[mold maker]

I could carry all the pewter I've found in the last year in my watch pocket and still have room for the watch.

[ncbearman]

So.....new to this and what I have learned so far. With alot of help from imashooter (thanks) the stuff they use to give pewter "weight" don't try to melt it out haha it stinks and is a mess. Also so far trying to guess on a piece if it is pewter or not that does not have a hallmark I have lost. Aged aluminum looks a lot like pewter. But my foundry will be done soon so I can melt that down too. haha

[David2011]

SWMBO got a pre-sale invite to an estate sale so I tagged along. I went through looking for pewter and anything else interesting. All I found for casting was a pair of candlesticks, one of which was broken and being glued back together. The seller said I could have them for a dollar. Score one. Rooting around in the garage I found two rolls of solder and she told me a buck apiece. Score two.

When I got out to the car I pulled the paper out of the center of one of the spools of solder and found that it was Brownell's Force 44. A full pound of 96% tin and 4% silver. As soon as I got to a computer I looked it up. I had scored a $110.00 roll of solder! I'll be keeping that for gunsmith work.



David

After removing the weighting material the candlesticks weighed 9.5 ounces.

[imashooter2]

Thanks for the addition! Those candlesticks look weighted... be sure you bust all of the filler out of them before they go in the pot. Ncbearman tells no lies about the mess if you don't.

[Sekatoa]

David2011, nice score on the Brownell's solder. I'm jealous!

[dubber123]

2.5# today, worked out to about $5/lb. I wish I could post pics of hallmarks, I think I have a few new ones.

[zxcvbob]

I went to the Goodwill store yesterday looking for a "new" coffeemaker. Instead came away with a Corningware casserole (the old Pyroceram stuff you can use on the stove) with the lid, and two pewter candlesticks. $3 each. I didn't have my glasses to read the hallmarks, but I could see that they were hallmarked.

Leonard weighted GENUINE PEWTER Made in Bolivia -- the price tag was covering up the word "weighted". I was skeptical because it said "genuine". They each weigh about 11.5 ounces (the candlesticks, not the casserole dish) but I don't know how much of that is the weighted base.

[imashooter2]

You probably have 4 to 6 ounces after knocking out all the camel snot weighting material. The Goodwill shops around here love to put the price stickers over the hallmarks too. They probably don't hire a lot of deep thinkers...

[imashooter2]

Well, it finally happened to me...

I picked up 3 wall hanger plates with the classic beaded angel hallmark. Now these aren't food service, so they don't go into the stuff that I sell, but I've never had an issue putting them in my own pots and I have melted dozens over the years. All have been good stuff... until yesterday. These broke up easily, just like all the others. No indication they were different except, they wouldn't melt. The pictures below are taken at just over 700 degrees. Big oatmeal clumps. A terrible mess and I just dumped it all into a Lee mold to get rid of it. Notice on the last picture the blob stuck on the pot rim is solid and has a little point sticking off it. That pot is still at 700 degrees! Sure am glad that I had a premonition to melt this stuff separately in my little Lee pot. I would have hated to contaminate 5 - 10 pounds of good alloy.

[dubber123]

Bummer! I haven't run across that hallmark yet, and will be wary. Glad you decided to melt separately.

[crowbarforge]

OK....I have all kinds of old pewter pieces that I have picked up to cast bolsters on knives...whet are you guys using the pewter for?

[imashooter2]

OK....I have all kinds of old pewter pieces that I have picked up to cast bolsters on knives...whet are you guys using the pewter for?

I use it as tin for addition to casting alloys.

[jsizemore]

Well, it finally happened to me...

I picked up 3 wall hanger plates with the classic beaded angel hallmark. Now these aren't food service, so they don't go into the stuff that I sell, but I've never had an issue putting them in my own pots and I have melted dozens over the years. All have been good stuff... until yesterday. These broke up easily, just like all the others. No indication they were different except, they wouldn't melt. The pictures below are taken at just over 700 degrees. Big oatmeal clumps. A terrible mess and I just dumped it all into a Lee mold to get rid of it. Notice on the last picture the blob stuck on the pot rim is solid and has a little point sticking off it. That pot is still at 700 degrees! Sure am glad that I had a premonition to melt this stuff separately in my little Lee pot. I would have hated to contaminate 5 - 10 pounds of good alloy.

Did this stuff start to melt at 450F or there abouts?