No markings that say pewter but gave it a try. They were a couple bucks each.
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No markings that say pewter but gave it a try. They were a couple bucks each.
Attachment 199275
Well, strike one...the daily bread plate from what I googled is aluminum and 10 other alloys? The jury is still out on the sun and moon. It's as heavy as lead.
If they are pewter they usually have hallmarks on the bottom stating such. There are many pictures of the marks in the pewter sticky thread here.
Don't feel bad - that Daily Bread plate got me too. One of my first 'not pewter' purchases.
Pewter items must have some kind of stamp stating that the item is made from pewter. No stamp, I don't buy it. Pewter is soft and can easily be bent with your hands. I sometimes carry a small magnifying glass to help me read the trademarks. Plates as the one shown by the OP are common. The ones I have found were cast from aluminum.
I too have a Daily Bread plate in my bucket of aluminum scrap!
The moon is pewter and was made by spoontiques. I weighed 1.3lbs after being removed from its stand. $3.99 it was more than you guys pay for your $1 a lb. but at least it's a start. It's in my pot as we speak.
I got burned by a "contains Pewter" stamp. I Only buy if it says pewter, best luck at Goodwill for some reason.
One of my first trips to Goodwill I found pewter, the next trip I found Sterling Silver. You can't use that #$%^& silver in boolits though!
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I just weighed it...1.15lbs
I made it into thinner bars to snip off as needed to add to my mix.
It had .15 lbs of some type of coating over the top of it I skimmed off. I hit it with the torch and it turned red and sparked a little. Maybe aliminum coating? Anyways $3.99 for a little over a pound of pewter I thought was good? Seem like it's going for around close to $20lb on the net.
You will get better at it... after you scrounge for a while, you will be able to recognize out of the corner of your eye... at 100 feet.. lol
Funny the plate almost got me once .... my gut said don't buy
I see so many of those plates at my local Goodwills. Quit even turning them over after third one, although I have seen them in several configurations (thicknesses, textures, &c.). Keep hunting, it seems to be boom or bust around here. Don't forget yard and estate sales, but some of them think pewter is worth silver prices.
Melt that sterling into ingots and ebay it! 92.5% silver... unless it was plated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghh3rd
the bread plate is armatale or some rot like that. If an item doesn't say pewter I try bending it, if it isn't ductile then I pass.
The buy that got me was a `pewter` coffee and tea service with tray. There was a picture of the word pewter and a hallmark so I bought it sight unseen. Turned out that the serving tray was pewter and not the plated coffee/tea set. The tray still got me 2 lbs before smelting.Robert
I haven't found much at Goodwill or other thrift stores in my area...the few items I found were candle stick holders and a small plate none were marked pewter, but I could bend the areas that are thinnest. I've read that the candle sticks may have sand or iron in the base for added weight...I haven't melted mine yet, but I know one of them is fairly heavy...so I suspect the worst...I think I paid 25¢ for that item, so I won't be too disappointed if the majority of the weight is a iron block.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grmps
There might be gorilla dung in there for weight too! Don't melt that!
I did better today. The only thing over a buck was the picture frame. The sand dollar has to be over a pound.
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The deer and vw I had laying around
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The jumping buck is not getting melted though...too cool
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I ended up with 1.7lbs today in lee bar weight and spent a total of $4.90
My best buy was "breakfast" by cynthie Fisher. A ducks unlimited print from 91'
Picked it up for $20! Its going above my 2 bobcat rugs, full body mount, and a mountain man bobcat hat I had made from my calling harvests.
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In haven't seen any mugs or dishes in my searches. I think they'll be hard to find in my area.
Well, in yesterdays and todays finds I've spent $8.89 and ended up with a little under 3lbs. Guess it's better than $20 a pound on line. At 2% add I would have enough for 150lbs?
Weighted pewter should say "weighted" someplace, often in really small print. Common for candle sticks, and stuff is like a horse hoof glue, or petrified Yak excrement. Hard as a rock, often hard to peel the pewter off of and man you can almost throw out the pan if any of that stuff gets melted in it. Or maybe set it on a bon fire of pallets. Stuff is really hard to clean out once it gets melted. Plus the pewter covering it is as thin as aluminum foil. Heavy duty aluminum foil but still pretty thin.
You should be able to gouge pewter with a thumbnail (on the back where it won't show) I have every so often found a picture frame or other small item that isn't stamped pewter but is a tin/pewter alloy of some sort. If it is cheap enough I'll give it a shot, I can gamble $2 on possibly getting a pound of pewter, or just another knick knack. More and more I am seeing picture frames that look exactly like pewter on the front BUT are a rough texture on the back and too hard to even mark with a finger nail. If it doesn't say pewter it is a gamble, now if you are buying $60 worth you don't want it to be "might be" pewter. But a couple of $1 picture frames at Salvation Army? Sure, why not. Either a good find or a cheap chance to educate yourself on what not to buy.
I should mention that really large metal tray that once I was "sure" was pewter wouldn't melt when hit with a propane torch, can't bend it, and won't scratch so to this day I dry tumble lube bullets on it covered with wax paper.
Has been said before but bears repeating. Take the time to determine if any of that stuff has collector value before making it a puddle. Lot of places over price pewter but some pieces do have a high value. Black pewter (has lead content so ages to a more black color) is usually from the 70's or before. Worth a quick check of prices for sold ones like it on eBay or look up the pewter mark online.
A good test for Pewter is to "tink" it against something.
Pewter will have no ring, just a dull thud.
Beware of Weighted Pewter. Most of the weight is Rosin inside the sealed section. Makes a mess!!!
Scrounging pewter, fun times. You quickly get the feel and sight for it. If it doesn't have a hallmark I usually don't buy. Then it has to pass the bend and sound test. I've only found one picture frame that was actually marked pewter. At times I've had more pewter then lead.
Here's some helpful tips I found when I first started:
Pewter Tips
Hallmark will say pewter, zinn,
No rivets, welds, screws, bolts, etc.
Handles are soldered on, not cast
No cast lines
Sticker that's says pewter usually isn't pewter
If bent will not return to shape
Is not magnetic
WILTON or ARMETALE or PEWTEREX on the bottom, or RWP is not pewter!
Melts @ 450°
A b.m. stamped on plated stuff indicating british metal which is tin.
Pock marks
1. Pewter vessels (mugs, urns, pots, etc) aren't cast. When pewter is cast (plates, for example), it isn't done in sand. When you see the pebble texture from the sand mold, it's likely aluminum.
2. Pewter can be polished up to look nearly like silver. Polished aluminum is "whiter" than silver, which is "whiter" than polished pewter. Pewter is not often highly polished, at least the stuff I have seen in my travels. It has a burnished look from being formed by turning and using wooden shaping tools.
3. With experience (and not a whole lot is needed), you'll be able to identify on sight and then use other things to confirm. In the beginning, stick to looking for "pewter" stamped in the bottom. On German pieces, you may see "95% Zinn" (Zinn is German for tin).
4. Oxidized pewter is a deep gray, not black like tarnished silver or silver plate. It can also have sort of a "waxy" feel to it that doesn't scrape off with your fingernail.
5. Aluminum and pewter can both be treated with chemicals that blacken the metal. With pewter you see this most often in figurines. Sometimes on commemorative plates.
6. If pewter has been poorly stored, you might see patches of corrosion (from other metals being in contact with moisture present) or white scale deposit (usually as spots)
7. As said before, small parts of pewter are joined by soldering. Steel is joined by spot welding. Aluminum is joined by riveting. Pewter is relatively weak (compared to aluminum and steel). I often roll platters and plates into a tube by hand before smelting. Can't do that to steel or aluminum.
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I, too, have a Daily Bread in my collection.
Lived and learned.
They're just the right size and depth to hold a wet sponge for cooling molds...
That stained glass stuff might well be pure lead with solder joints. The twisted pieces I have found have been lead. Stained glass lead framing or channel is called lead "came". Really large pieces can have a stiffener of zinc in it. Have not seen it in the small decorative pieces.
Dear wife has a whole collection of dried flowers and dried leaves in leaded glass., not going to fight her for modest amounts of lead
[QUOTE=RogerDat;4096120]That stained glass stuff might well be pure lead with solder joints. The twisted pieces I have found have been lead. Stained glass lead framing or channel is called lead "came". Really large pieces can have a stiffener of zinc in it. Have not seen it in the small decorative pieces.
Roger, makes sense. It was as soft as solder vs the pewter was a lot harder.Any tin it what so ever? Guessing not? I won't buy any more and did mix it in with the others when melting. Wasn't a lot anyways. I was thinking solder was soft and was guessing it mixed the same.
Has anyone made 100% pewter bullets? I know it's not cost efficient, but with $ not in the equation how would they do?
They fill out really nice and are as beautiful a shiny silver as you will ever see. They are also way light. I never shot any, but I would think that shooting solder bullets would exacerbate any leading problem you might have.
Just keep looking...pewter does not turn up often in my area when it does it's a generally priced high as the places it shows up in no the value of the alloy.
One antique shop often has pewter. Although not much in the ways of "scrap".
They do how ever mark their prices down every few weeks. They actual put the date and price drop amount on the tag. They will not hold anything for you. So you just need to beat the buyers at the price your willing to pay to the next price drop.
It's all fun. I just scored a small pitcher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BexugF0u2DI
I picked up 3.25lbs today at the thrift stores in town....and I bought two RWP plates that I found out were 10 different metals again.
The cenex plate was the big score at goodwill. $1.99 for a 1.5 plate! Candlesticks were $1.49, I couldn't find the Pewter stamp last Friday and found it today so I grabbed them up. The flower vase was $1.99, the little tractor was free, and I took one for the team and spent $2.99 for the circular design. Oh, and the duck has no markings on it but I saw it in the 60 page pewter postings so I gambled and bout it for$1.99...is it pewter???
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The cenex plate...
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The vase...
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I googled the duck. It says silver plated and then I found a silver plated brass and a copper. I'm guessing a solid no. I polished it up with mothers and it looks like chrome. It's light weight which is telling me it's not. My dad wants it so he's getting a late Father's Day present.
Cenex isn't the maker of the plate. They are a company that engraved their logo on it, probably as an award of some sort. The real touch mark is the 2nd picture.
Plates and trays are good finds. Weight goes up quickly with small increases in diameter. Congrats on the new additions.
Anything past 10% tin in your alloy stands a good chance of putting tin in your bore and you'll play hell getting it out. There's an old thread that covers getting it out of a mold (which is easy to get at) and it ain't fun.
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I made a trip to iowa and hit three resale stores. In 25 min I ended up with these. All $2-4ea accept for three of them. The two large items in back...the coffee pot and piture were $8ea so I let my sis buy them. The canteen was $6 and I grabbed it since it was pretty heavy. I'm guessing 1.5lbs. I'm going to hold on to it for a while. I was trying to research it and it looks like its worth a pretty penny if its not a reproduction.
Hmmmm reread.... Post from ...FlyfishermanMike..... will help you save some bucks.
Nose Dive
Cheap, Fast, good. kindly pick two.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nose Dive
I did, he never responded.
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Found some more today. First pic all a $1 each or less. The plate was $4
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I melted some of the frames and plate tonight...