theperfessor
01-19-2009, 01:22 PM
A retired colleague and friend of mine used to cast fishing weights and toy figurines. He had molds for all types and weights of sinkers and a really nice bunch of molds for WWI & WWII soldiers, most of the M*A*S*H characters, marching band members, etc. He had already consigned the molds to an auctioneer (he knew I wasn't particularly interested in them). He used to sell his stuff at his church auction every summer.
He called me up over the holidays and asked me if I wanted to buy all his remaining lead. I told him I'd split the difference between what the local recycler was paying for scrap and selling scrap, so we both felt the deal was fair.
I ended up with 411 pounds of lead, much of which was already cast into sinkers and figurines. I thought about trying to sell the figurines and sinkers as is, since I don't really need the lead right away, but then I thought about a little bit and decided not to. The local fishing shops weren't interested in buying the sinkers for any more than I paid for the scrap, since most of them are too heavy for the local fisherman to use.
I offered some of the figurines to another friend, a model railroader, but he turned them down as the scale was wrong for his train setup.
Then I thought about selling the figurines and realized that all it would take is some crumb-muncher deciding to eat one for dessert and I would be sued and could lose everything I had, while gaining a reputation worse than China.
Can't take the risk, so I'm saving one of each type and melting the rest down for raw materials. Strange that it can be legally safer to make bullets than toys!
He called me up over the holidays and asked me if I wanted to buy all his remaining lead. I told him I'd split the difference between what the local recycler was paying for scrap and selling scrap, so we both felt the deal was fair.
I ended up with 411 pounds of lead, much of which was already cast into sinkers and figurines. I thought about trying to sell the figurines and sinkers as is, since I don't really need the lead right away, but then I thought about a little bit and decided not to. The local fishing shops weren't interested in buying the sinkers for any more than I paid for the scrap, since most of them are too heavy for the local fisherman to use.
I offered some of the figurines to another friend, a model railroader, but he turned them down as the scale was wrong for his train setup.
Then I thought about selling the figurines and realized that all it would take is some crumb-muncher deciding to eat one for dessert and I would be sued and could lose everything I had, while gaining a reputation worse than China.
Can't take the risk, so I'm saving one of each type and melting the rest down for raw materials. Strange that it can be legally safer to make bullets than toys!