I made a score today, picking up 340 pounds of wheelweights that had been smelted into ingots for $70 and a pound of honey from my hives. I used to think the "golden amber fluid that makes friends and influences people" was whiskey, but now I know for sure it is honey. Anyway, this stuff is from the estate of a competitive target shooter. I found some reject cast boolits in one of the buckets of various shapes and sizes including a very large hollow based wadcutter that had to be at least .40 caliber. I know these things were not smelted yesterday judging by the accumulated dust and stuff in the buckets and by comparing the ingots from this lot with recently smelted stuff. How old they are is anybody's guess and of course the weights they were made from could have been older still.
Any idea when clip on wheel weights became common? I am guessing that these ingots probably have a fair bit more tin and antimony than more recent stuff, but who knows. Is there an easy way to get a sample ingot tested?