First monotype score today!!!

[The Dar]

The wife came out to the shop this morning while I was finishing up powder coating some bullets. She told me she wanted to go to the antique mall here in town. We go every two or three weeks, I go to look for pewter (couple good scores in the past) and she goes to look for....well, um...I'm not sure what she's looking for, lol. So, off we go to take a look around. I did find pewter but I wasn't willing to pay the prices they wanted for it. She found a knick knack for the house. While she was waiting in line to checkout. I wandered over to the display case in the corner where they have small advertising items. The case is full of old lighters, ink pens, playing cards, etc. I was ready to walk off when I spied something on the very dark bottom shelf. MONOTYPE letters!!!!!

I asked what they wanted for them and was informed $3.00 each. They pulled the tray out for me to look at. I jokingly asked, how much for the whole lot? Owner and son(?) discussed it and I heard mention that they had it for years and only sold two letters. Owner looks at me and says $20.00. I didn't want to show my hand, replied, "let me think about it a bit". I took a step back and saw a second tray of letters! They pulled the second tray out for me to look at. Owner told me I could have it all for $30.00. I judged the total to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 lbs. Told her, "you got a deal". I couldn't get my wallet open fast enough. Came home and weighed it out, just over 25lbs. It now resides in a nearly full 30 cal ammo can.



I'll bet I've passed that display case thirty times over the past few years and never saw the monotype. I'll be looking more carefully from now on.

[lightman]

Nice Score! I have 3 nearly full 5 gallon buckets of mixed mono and foundry type that I got when I worked part time at the local news paper. I have never found any since although I have found lino a few times. Good eye!

[Beagle333]

Good score! The hardest part about a deal like that is trying not to shake too bad as you're trying to hand them the money and appear calm.

[Dusty Bannister]

It might take a long time to use this material up though. If you happen to find any logos or images, you will begin to stop and look at every piece you weigh out to melt into alloy. Fun though. Good you finally found it and helped clear out some old stock.

[jsizemore]

One of the vendor ladies at the flea market sold small parts from the house. Chandelier crystals, door knobs, brass pulls, etc. She had a small box of monotype letters that she gave away to kids so they could make a stamp of their initials. When the folks were gone I let her know that the biggest part of them was lead. She said she'd been hauling those letters and 2-5 gal. buckets of them around for years and figured she'd have to dump them. I told her what I did with them and she said her brother was a reloader but didn't cast. I think I got it for less than a dollar per lb. She had both buckets under her display tables. I carried them to the truck and didn't even notice how heavy they were.

[Hardcast416taylor]

About 25 years ago I came into a 5 gal. pail that was a bit over 1/2 full of mono letters from a print shop a hospital used to have. They were scraping it out to make room for a lab. A buddy of mine was a muscle/body builder type and was maintence man there. He asked his supervisor about the letters. The super simply said `take `em`. My buddy carried that pail out to his car and brought it to me. I couldn`t even get the pail out of his car! Today, I still have about half of the original amount left in an old wood .45 acp ammo crate from Korea vintage. I was teaching my buddy to reload at that time, so we called the trade of knowledge for mono type even.Robert

[MaryB]

Some looks like foundry type... has the round notch... nice score tho!