My BIG score is a bust

[blueeyephil]

I saw a Facebook post of a guy selling 80 lbs of lead. It was from a newspaper so I'm thinking, lynotype. The guy was about 25 miles from me and work about 30 miles the other direction too. Anyway I call the guy and make arrangements for a buddy to pick it up for me. Anyway I get it and I'm still thinking lynotype. Well I have another friend that works at a factory that does castings. He said he could get it analyzed for me. So I cut off a small chunk. Man the stuff is hard. Well turns out 97.77% ZINC!!! Sold it for scrap an lost a bit of money, but worse was that I didn't get any lead/Lynotype for my trouble.

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[Chris C]

Bummer!!!!!

[GhostHawk]

Never send a friend the first time. But you just learned that lesson right?

[blueeyephil]

Never send a friend the first time. But you just learned that lesson right?

Guess so. I knew he didn't know anything about lead. Had I expected it could have been zinc, I would have passed unless I could have picked it up myself. Really posting so others will be aware. Probably no one will run into anything like this. It was from 1975 and had come from an estate sale.

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[Bzcraig]

Yeah that sucks but thankfully you had it analyzed before melting with good stuff.

[RogerDat]

I have a couple of small pieces of that, mine has an advertisement on it. Acid test for zinc, search for it on the site. Or hit with propane torch, linotype or type metal in general melts at about half the temp of zinc. Pretty easy to spot the difference once you have seen printers lead melted one time.

[jsizemore]

The guys in my area that shoot cannons love zinc. You may be able to find some in your area next time it happens.

[OS OK]

Cleaned up, that would have made an interesting table lamp base.

[claude]

Cleaned up, that would have made an interesting table lamp base.

^^Thinking outside the box.^^

[LIMPINGJ]

Or list it as vintage Dead See Scroll.