i can buy some wheel weights 1970's age. What would be a fair price to offer? Rick
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i can buy some wheel weights 1970's age. What would be a fair price to offer? Rick
Start out as little as you want to pay for them. You can always go higher, and not feel as if you paid too much.
$30 is pretty much the going price....but lead prices are sneaking up so one has to be careful not to upset the seller if you really want them. What age they are really has no bearing on what they will bring on todays market.
Edd
When I'm lucky to find ww, I buy them by the lb.
I use an electronic scale.
I dump their bucket into my bucket, that way I can see what other stuff is in their bucket besides ww.
This way I can also deduct the weight of my bucket so I don't have to pay extra for the weight of their bucket.
I also find the person with the ww appreciates the use of the scale, that way he knows he is getting a fair price for his ww.
Which (to me at least) goes a long way in keeping the seller happy and more likely to save the ww for you.
As stated, offer the lowest price you want to pay, you can always go up.
I check with the scrap yards and see how much they pay for scrap lead and how much they sell it for, then I adjust my offering price.
Found two local sources The first has the 1970 wheel weights. The second has 45 lbs he used for sinkers .I dont konw what the metal is May be pure lead He wants $50 Any thoughts?
here it is
Question is, can you really use that pure lead?
$50 for 45lbs ofThat's about $1.10 / lb, with no certain outcome. That doesn't sound so good to me.Quote:
dont konw what the metal is
Keep in mind, rotometals sells 55 lb pigs of 99.9% lead for $89 delivered. That's $1.62 / lb and you know exactly what it is.
I would call the scrap places around your area, and ask what their buy and sell prices are per pound. I would offer scrap price, maybe a little more, but no more than you could buy scrap for.
I haven't paid $1/ lb for lead yet, and hope I don't have to. Much of the time you could find someone in the swap & sell section with ingots for sale for less than that.
My .02 worth
My local scrapyard is currently paying $0.45 per pound. The jerks will not sell at any price.
My thoughts also I dont know what the metal is .I think the wheel weights are at least a know alloy (give or Take)
pretty soon WW will only be a few cents (per pound) less than foundry grade alloy....something here just doesn't add up....people willing to pay for scrap, is what has driven prices up....junk man thinks hey can get $0.45 a pound....sells it to the foundry, foundry buys it because they know some guy will pay $1.80 a pound for decent clean alloy....and the cycle goes on and on....there are charts which track the current availability of warehoused lead....go find them and see how much lead is on the market right now....once you see how much there is, you will realize that the prices aren't an issue of supply/demand....it's just the "free market"....if everyone stopped buying lead at these prices, you watch how fast it would go back to $0.18 a pound....panic buying is ruining the firearms and ammunition markets....that includes lead/powder/primers/brass....and the fat cats are sitting behind the wheel of their Bently and laughing at us....meh....I guess I can't say much...I still buy everything I mentioned above
+1 on that.Quote:
My thoughts also I dont know what the metal is .I think the wheel weights are at least a know alloy (give or Take)
It looks to me, like the first ones on the scale are factory ingots, likely pure lead. See if you can scratch them with your thumbnail. As for the brownish white round bar, who knows. Is it lead pipe? Is it something someone poured years ago?? who knows.
Honestly, I have nothing against trying out some "mystery metal" if it were cheep enough / free. But I wouldn't pay that much for it. Lead isn't that hard to come by yet. Many times I've seen ingots for sale in our own swapping and selling area for less than that.
Yesterday they outlawed lead WW here.
Now folks think they are gold
The panic buying of lead by american comsumers is a very small thing in the world scope.
China is the largest new user of lead and they are buying a lot of it. A few months ago China cancelledall their steel,copper and lead orders. Copper fell from $3.95 to $0.95 and lead was up to $1.50 and fell to $0.50. Now all base metal prices are getting back up to where they were 10 months ago.
We boolit casters are not a drop in the bucket to affect the market price.
I called a scrap metal buyer here in Houston last week, asked what they paid for lead. They are only offering 30 cents a pound!
Well when the EPA calls CO2 a hazardous gas Anything is possible.
Well, that may not be entirely true to boolit casters, possibly true in the much larger world of scrap metal prices.
Current WW's should average 2-3% antimony but in days gone by WW had around 10% antimony, nearly lino percentage. It was in the late 70's and early 80's that mfg's started dropping the percentage of antimony a bit at a time until it got to what we have today . . . 2-3%.
If those weights really are from the 70's they could be cut 50/50 with say stick-on weights (or pure) and you would still have a higher antimony percentage than todays weights. This would be a great find for a boolit caster, buy all of those weights you can get.
Rick
Personally, I wouldn't pay any more than $0.20 a pound and I'd be darn sure that at least half of it was usable. $50 is WAY to much since you can get pig lead from our vendor/sponsor for about the same price per quantity and you know what you're getting. Mystery alloy can turn out to a real waste of funds in my experience. I'd pass on the unknown stuff.
Edd
2 years from now we will be paying $2 a pound and consider it a good deal. Better buy what you can while the gettin is good.
Let me know of any WW near me and I'll guarantee they will disappear fast. Get you heads away from the past and read the big sign on the wall.
WW that are usable are fast becoming dreams. The last melt I did was over 20%zinc/iron/rubber weights. On top of that was the usual trash such as valve stems, cores, and dirt.
When you add shipping to online or evilbay prices, for metal that you only have someone else's word for the content, it can get really expensive.
Get what you can in raw form and make sure to put some aside for hard times, cause they are certainly coming.
The fear of Obama may be the catalyst that drove all the prices in our hobby skyward, but there will always be another name to take his place. Nothing will ever be the same as our memories.
I can remember $.13/gal gasoline, but I'll never get any more at that price.
Remember when most print shops had Linotype?
Remember when all plumbers had a lead furnace and 5# lead cookies?
Remember when lots of machine bearings were made of babbitt?
Remember when ALL WW were lead/antimony that we got for free?
All that was the case when I started casting, less than 45 years ago, but it will never be that way again.
I rember getting a Remington 514 with Green Stamps! A Rem 700 BDL 134 bucks. 10cents for a bottle of Mountain Dew. I am 53 yrsd young.
I think the biggest factor affecting wheel weights was the decision by the California lawmakers to make them illegal.
Other states will soon follow and even if they don't companies who make wheel weights will grow tired of making different ones for the Ca crowd. They will simply start making only California spec wheel weights so they don't lose that market.
$.13 a gallon!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am 56 and never seen it lower than $19.9, lol.
Gasoline was not cheap when it was $0.23 per gallon. 1 hour of minimum wage would get you about 30 miles down the road. Now 1 hour of minimun wage will get you about 60-75 miles down the road.
Michigan 3-4 years ago, not sure of others. All of europe a few ago years ago.
Rick
I was lucky enough to score a 15-gallon drum about 2/3 full of WWs from the 1960s a couple years ago. BHn tested at 13! I'm about 3/4 the way through that stockpile at present, and have 2 other metal lots I'll work through next.
I'm about done trying to score wheelweight metal the old-fashioned way. CA tire stores have largely been indoctrinated into the TreeHuggingCondorSaver consciousness-raising bullwarp, and if I hear that airhead mantra one more time I'll lose lunch.
When Rotometals first placed their ads here, I thought their prices were obscene. Now, I'm not so sure. No smelting required. No waste stream. No mystery metal. No driving around all over the place, getting less and less metal/more and more annoyed. They deliver it. They WANT to sell it, aren't afraid of doing so, and don't treat the transaction like some damn dope deal.
I think they'll get my business next time I want metal. Paradigm shifts are what they are, and we better get used to it.
I can get 95 lbs of wheel weights (1970 vintage) These are of course with clips so actual weight is less .Question what would be a fair price to offer? I can buy wheel weights from a sponser here for $1.95 a pound .No clips but have to ship. The seller is about at least 6 gals of gas away $15 . .50 cents a pound to high or low? Thanks Rick(ps) what would the yeild be of alloy with the clips removed
80 to 85%
Shooterbr, Those 70s vintage WWs might have $0.70 per pound worth antimony in them.
$1.00 would be a steal and if they are the newer 3% WWs its still not that bad.
I can still buy it for $15 for a 5 gallon bucket around here. Also it is hard to find a bucket full.
I hear ya Al, I've been getting a bit more in the last couple of weeks than I had for quite some time. I think shops here are starting to realize that they can't re-use them now no matter how badly they may want to.
If I can get another 400-500 pounds cleaned up and in ingots added to what I currently have I should never have to worry about it for the rest of my shooting life. If I cannot get that much more within a reasonable time I'll check with Rotometals and just buy that much more.
Rick
This **** actually started in Europe some 6-7 yrs ago. All Euro cars coming into the states have no lead ww. Kalif enviro kooks jumped on the band wagon as have the other western states. It will be a national ban before PBO leaves office, just watch & see. SO I collect what I can & am still using commercial cast for plinking bullets. I am saving the lead for LHP & big bore bullets.
[QUOTE=cbrick;765777]Michigan 3-4 years ago, not sure of others. All of europe a few ago years ago.
Rick[/QUOTE
I have to question that. I live in MI and have three tire shops I go to that are still using NEW lead WW.
Edd
I wish I could find it for even double that here in Oregon. I just paid $15 for a much smaller bucket, from a fairly large chain store no less, because they were the only ones who would sell me any. The bucket weighed about 40 pounds, but after tossing all the steel and zinc weights, I ended up with 26 pounds of lead ingots. That's the most expensive lead I've ever bought.Quote:
I can still buy it for $15 for a 5 gallon bucket around here
I think I'll go back for more next week. 50 to 75 cents a pound will probably sound like quite a bargain in years to come.
That sounds like Les Schawb In canby!!
This summer, they wanted $20 for a 2 gal bucket.
Sounds like Les Schwab around these parts as well. They were willing to give me a few weights (<2 lbs) for free, but to buy a 2 gallon bucket would have set me back over $20. They said they have a contract to sell them back to their provider and that is how much they get in credit from them. Sounds to me like they are way overpaying for their new ones. I think I'd be looking for a new provider.