What are my ingots

[Springfield]

I bought some more scrap lead from a guy who was selling it for his friend's widow. They say "American Smelting and Refining Co" and "Federated Metals Division" on the front, and stamped on the back it says "MER1T". A search of the web shows that they are out of business. Any way to tell what they are? Seems a bit harder than pure lead. How hard is tin compared to lead?

[MT Gianni]

No clue to content but I recall from somewhere that upon being asked if he spoke English Pancho Villa replied: "Si, American Smelting and Refining, y Son of a bi***". Apparently they have been around a while and tossed a wide loop. Gianni

[Springfield]

According to the internet they had many smelters since about 1885. I have a piece of pure tin and this stuff seemed harder than that going by my pocketknife test.

[xoxoTA]

Hello gentlemen.
For a first post I couldn't resist this topic. Lots of old memories came back, but as some of you other old farts know, at a certain stage, they are ALL old memories!
I worked at ASARCO in Omaha while in college in the 1960s. They smelted custom lead for Remington and Delco batteries, among many other customers. All the alloys were to order.
And I well remember the explosions on rainy summer nights when water got into the ingot molds. Pretty exotic place to work in Omaha !

[Single Shot]

I'm still searching for the alloy but I did stumble across this interesting bit of company history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASARCO


Now you know why you were working on rainy nights.


In addition: Meyer Guggenheim and his sons took over the company in 1901. In 1916, 17 ASARCO employees were killed and mutilated by Pancho Villa's men, one of the incidents that sparked the US Military's Punitive Expedition against Villa.

[NVcurmudgeon]

I'm still searching for the alloy but I did stumble across this interesting bit of company history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASARCO


Now you know why you were working on rainy nights.


In addition: Meyer Guggenheim and his sons took over the company in 1901. In 1916, 17 ASARCO employees were killed and mutilated by Pancho Villa's men, one of the incidents that sparked the US Military's Punitive Expedition against Villa.

Wow, these guys were robber barons of the first water. They were considered a major polluter 100 years ago when nobody but TR and John Muir knew what the word pollution meant.