Pewter or lead ?

[paralaska]

We don't have a lot of pewter up here . . . I'm not sure what pewter looks or feels like . . .
Anyway . . . I found a candle holder in a thrift shop . . . It looked promising, so I took it home. It was fairly heavy, and I remember seeing in the pewter thread where a lot of the stuff was pewter with a interior filler to give it weight . . . So I started breaking it apart. It was soft and solid all the way thru. If I had to guess, I would say it was all solid soft lead . . . But . . . Having never seen pewter . . . I don't know for sure.
Do they make candle holders out of lead?
There were no makers marks anywhere on it.

[bangerjim]

I have NEVER seen a candle holder made of pure Pb. It rubs off on your hands REAL bad (black), is VERY toxic, and is waaaaay too soft.

Pewter (newer) is mostly Sn and much lighter than Pb. It could be home-made by someone out of lead becuase it is so easy to cast. Everything I have ever found/bought/own has a hallmark on the bottom. Even modern foodware is marked "pewter".

Many candlesticks (Sn and Ag) have lead weights in the bottom because the stuff is just too light and tends to be top-heavy with a candle in it.

[Yodogsandman]

If you have a way to melt it down and know the temperature when it does melt, tin will melt at a much lower temp than lead. I think tin melts at about 488*F and lead is about 580*F+.

Keep your eyes out for more! Good luck!

[Deadpool]

You could measure the displacement and weigh it, come up with a density.. That could give you an idea before attempting to destroy it with a torch to test the melting temperature. If pewter it should melt pretty easily.

[Retumbo]

There are a lot of silver plated lead candle holders out there.

[Beesdad]

There are a lot of silver plated lead candle holders out there.

How are they marked... Do you have any photos ?

[Retumbo]

I don't recall, next time i am in a thrift store I will snap a pic.

[bangerjim]

Most of those siverplate pieces that I have seen many times are either brass or pot metal (various alloys of zinc), not lead, as the base metal. If you are really lucky, you will find silver plated pewter, but you may be getting into collectable antiques then! READ UP......B4 you melt!!!!!!

[Retumbo]

I have seen a lot of silver plated candle holders and plated lead salt and pepper shakers on Ebay too

[Beesdad]

Most of those siverplate pieces that I have seen many times are either brass or pot metal (various alloys of zinc), not lead, as the base metal. If you are really lucky, you will find silver plated pewter, but you may be getting into collectable antiques then! READ UP......B4 you melt!!!!!!

yes I see the silver plate over the pewter base metal frequently.. But I must be missing the lead ones..

[bangerjim]

I have seen a lot of silver plated candle holders and plated lead salt and pepper shakers on Ebay too

And you trust the idiot sellers on ebay to know the difference between lead, zinc, and brass?

I sure don't.

And who would use salt out of a lead shaker??????????? Oh....mabe that's the sellers on ebay!

HA........ha.

[Retumbo]

Glad one of us thinks he knows it all! I bow to your supremacy.

[imashooter2]

I've never seen or heard of silver plated lead until you pronounced it so. Do you have any examples to show us?

[bangerjim]

Glad one of us thinks he knows it all! I bow to your supremacy.

Where on God's green earth did I ever say I knew it all. You must be reading waaaaaay too much into my post above!!!!!!!

I DO know there are a lot of idiots on ebay that try to sell anything they can get their hands on to turn a buck. They see something that looks sorta kinda like what they have and.......BoOM........up it goes for auction. With the wrong description. Buyer Beware!

I deal in antiques all the time and have a pretty good handle on how things were made. You may find some Chicom carp out there that is plated lead. Remember life is cheap over there. They do not worry about lead poisoning.

Brass and pot metal seem to be the common base metals for silver and gold plating. I have seen some plated pewter stuff, but not that often. I prefer the bare olde antique pewterware myself. I do NOT melt it down!!!!! Most of the modern food service and other stuff is not really worth anything but the Sn metal content. Unless it is a signed artist piece ( some are highly collectable).

Good luck in the search for Sn! (at a reasonable $$)

bangerjim

[jonp]

And you trust the idiot sellers on ebay to know the difference between lead, zinc, and brass?

I sure don't.

And who would use salt out of a lead shaker??????????? Oh....mabe that's the sellers on ebay!

HA........ha.

What do you think you shake lead salt out of???

[bangerjim]

What do you think you shake lead salt out of???

Last time I checked, none of my chef's cookbook recipes call for "lead salt"! YUUUUCK!

I know the Romans made a sweet drink out of lead.....look where they ended up!! And I have been to Bath, England and the Roman baths that were heavily laden with Pb and other elemental metals that created mental disorders.

Many heavy metals (Pb, Hg, etc) were widely used in the olden daze in medical treatments and scientific experiments without any regard to human safety.

Thanks.........but I will dispense my table salt from my antique solid silver shakers. ( the wife likes the sea salt grinders she gets at Costco!)

Remember, the human body requires 1500-2300 mg of NaCl per day per the medical community experts.....minus the Pb! Ha....ha!

And the reason pewter (poor man's silver) became popular in the past is poorer people got "trench mouth" from eating out of unsanitary wooden "trenchers", wooden food bowls and platters that held all kinds of disease. If they could even afford metalware, it was generally pewter.


banger

[Deadpool]

I know the Romans made a sweet drink out of lead.....look where they ended up!!

They used a lead coin to "sweeten" wine in homes.

Columella describes boiling of grapes in a lead vessel, though, to impart sweetness. But they also sometimes blended the sweet unfermented grape must with wine for sweetness, or added honey.

What was the drink, if not wine?

[Beesdad]

I've never seen or heard of silver plated lead until you pronounced it so. Do you have any examples to show us?

I requested a photo in post #6..,,..

[paralaska]

Well . . . I got my lee hardness tester in the mail and tested the candle holder that started this thread. As stated in my origional post, it feels, looks and cuts like lead. It tested @ 12 bhn which is the same as my CWWs that I also tested. Since Pewter should be somewhere around 23 bhn . . . I' m guessing that the candle holder is very similar to CWW alloy. BTW . . . I also tested some "Cast Performance" 325 grain, hard cast, gas checked bullets, . . . And they came in at 15 bhn. . .

[bangerjim]

There are several compositions of pewter. The ratios of Sb and Cu vary the hardness.

One example:
Composition: 92% Tin (Sn); 6% Antimony (Sb); 2% Copper (Cu)
Density: 0.263 lb / in³
Casting Temperature Range: 525-600F
Hardness, as cast (Bhn): 23

It sounds like your stick is made from some "mystery" metal. Does it look commercial cast or maybe homemade in a shop class from WW's?

In one of the shop classes I had in HS, we learned sand casting and used WW's to cast objects that the instructor had molds for. Could be a possibility?

bangerjim