Dead soft or alloyed? Ingot or as-is? SFRB or MFRB?

[7Acres]

I recently got a haul that I'm getting geared up to smelt and put for sale here in a couple months when everything comes together. About half of what I got was dead soft roofing exhaust vent with flange & flashing. The other half was cast blocks, & some wheel weights. I wanted to separate out the soft stuff from the alloyed and do 2 separate melts to keep the two separate for folks who prefer one over the other.

But in watching all the lead sold here over the past year or so everything seems to sell equally well and at about the same price range too. At times I've come under the impression that some folks shy away from dead soft because they don't have tin/antimony/etc to sweeten them up. Other folks prefer dead soft so they can work up their own custom alloy.*

It seems like everyone likes wheel weights. But some folks won't touch wheel weight ingots because they don't want to take a chance on the seller not being discriminating enough to correctly sort out all non-lead wheel weights. And others feel it's nice to get WW ingots to save them the step of having to smelt them, skim the clips, deal with all the smoke, etc.

I've always sorted my WWs by hand but I'm picking up some muriatic acid today also as I don't ever want to get a ding in my reputation here for selling anything with zinc in it. So as I upgrade my smelting operation and get ready to start selling lead here will you please share your opinions, preferences and criteria that go into your decision to buy someone's box of lead or not?

[runfiverun]

shipping of ingots is generally more cost effective.
a picture of the sheet lead that you ingotized goes a long way.

some will still prefer chunks of the sheet lead [shrug]

[ssnow]

Personally, I would prefer to buy wheel weight ingots when the seller first sorts by hand. While this may not be an absolute guarantee the ingots will be zinc free, it certainly increases the odds in my favor. I would buy from the guy who takes the time to sort, long before I would buy from the guy who does not.

Then of course, there is always the matter of price. While there are many reasons one would wish to cast his own bullets, saving money is usually the first attraction. Price it high, and sales will be slow, with only those who can't find anything more economical in the desired time frame. Make the price attractive, and guys will buy it quickly, even if they don't have immediate need of it.

[Defcon-One]

Like they said above, take a photo of the raw material to use in your ad, then sort it all by hand to avoid Zinc and smelt it into ingots or muffins.

I always keep Soft Lead seperate from Antimonial Lead. Better to have two products of known content.

Sell it on here for about $1.00 per pound, plus shipping. I like the medium FRB but no reason that you could not offer two quantities and go with a SFRB and MFRB option.

If nobody bites, then drop the price by 1/2 the shipping cost (ie. split the shipping) and somebody will likely buy it!

It is as simple as that!

[7Acres]

Thanks for the input! If really like to sell by the sfrb. My wife could help get them to the post office when needed and nobody will complain at the PO. Do people turn down lead because of the small increase in per pound shipping cost for sfrb vs medium? Or is that not much of a factor?

[ssnow]

I wouldn't say they "turn down lead" because of the box.....The box really isn't at issue, if you set the price so it works out about the same.

Bear in mind, there is no shortage of lead. We can order all the new alloy we want from Roto-Metals or other suppliers. What is in short supply, is cheap or economical lead, as a supply of cheap or free wheel weights is difficult to find and only getting worse as time passes.

I hate to say that we're cheap. But, you are going to be selling to a bunch of guys who are basically digging through garbage to find some cheap lead, instead of buying new alloy Sounds like we're cheap to me

Bottom line, get some good alloy to our door at a good price, and we will buy.

[Fluxed]

I resist small boxes because too much of my money is paid to shipping. I much prefer larger boxes. Right now, the price here seems to be about $1.50 delivered. I guess its the big scare. And its funny seeing that spot lead is down about 10% but here its up by 50% over a few months ago. I think that is too high shipped unless there is reason to believe that the lead is really clean and is ready to make the boolits I want without adding other metal or doing any more work. Even then I hesitate. $1.00 delivered is about my limit for unknown lead. (that's not a comment about you or your lead, its just what it is, that scrap is scrap and not of known make-up) I can buy literally all I want of guaranteed quality lead for $2.00 that is ready to cast with. And I generally don't.

I hope that helps.

[7Acres]

I wonder if demand for paper lead is down but demand for physical lead is up just like silver and gold recently. That lead ticker up top is for paper lead traded on the stock market, right?

[Fluxed]

I wonder if demand for paper lead is down but demand for physical lead is up just like silver and gold recently. That lead ticker up top is for paper lead traded on the stock market, right?

That's right.
There is still a connection between that price and most every other price of lead. Other ways to value might be what your local scrap/recycler will pay, what the outfit who buys from them pays, eBay, typical sale prices here. There is a lag but supply and demand works from both ends to get to a sale value which will be different at different points of the market. But that "paper" price does have meaning - it's part of how bigger buyers set what they will pay.

You might get the very highest sale price by selling on eBay and getting the current top panic dollar there. However you have to deal with the extra hassle and costs of using their service. And I speak for myself - the transaction overhead for multiple small sales is significant. On the other hand, that might not matter to you.

[Baryngyl]

You might get the very highest sale price by selling on eBay and getting the current top panic dollar there. However you have to deal with the extra hassle and costs of using their service. And I speak for myself - the transaction overhead for multiple small sales is significant. On the other hand, that might not matter to you.

Thats right, I have sold some stuff on Ebay, even when I have got a higher price for it then most places are getting, by the time I pay the Ebay fee's (They now charge a fee on the S&H charges you charge so that means I have to increase my S&H charge to cover that), paypal fees and shipping I usually make the same or even less on the sale then if I sell here or other forums at a lower price.


Michael Grace

[Big_Blue]

I paid on average $0.15/lb for the last 450 pounds of WWs I collected locally. That smelted down to 312/lbs of ingots, which comes to about $0.21/lb. Your doing the gathering, sorting, and smelting certainly has value to me, but I couldn't see $1.50/lb and to be honest I'd be hard pressed to go $1/lb. You are certainly due your profit for the hard work you'll be doing in my place, but I wouldn't see that being worth much more than double what I'm currently paying. That would change, of course, if lead was harder to come by, but here in Georgia its not that hard.