Unique find; 30-pound "Tin pot"...

[Land Owner]

...at least I think so, in an antique / curio / consignment shop. I will need help in identifying what it is. I will post pictures and confirm the dimension too.

I saw it Friday and made the shop an offer (tin or not - it is 100% unique). Its owner was not immediately available for negotiation. Late yesterday, through the shop, he agreed to my offer. I go to pick it up when they open this morning.

In my Mind's Eye, the pot is a "truncated heart" shape, ~18" tall; slender and flat, ~8" in dia., at the bottom; ~18" in dia. at the upper 1/3; and tapered in the top 1/3 to close against a "proud lip" ~3" tall and ~4" in out-to-out dia. The walls are ~3/16" thick. These dimensions will be verified.

The interior is rough, but the outside is hand smoothed from decades / century of use, dull gray, malleable metal (very lightly dented in a place or two), and ~30-pounds in total weight. The lid, at ~3 pounds, is hemispherical, like a "mushroom", ~5" in diameter, complements and completes the overall shape of the pot, is hand smooth, very close tolerance that creates a vacuum to remove, and slip fits over the proud lip. There are no handles. Carrying the circular pot is "a chore".

Under the lid, is a close fitting, ~4" dia., "closure plate" of the same metal which is ~3/16" thick with a ~3" long by ~3/4" cylindrical "dongle" that hangs down in the middle (no clue for what this was intended - guesses?). The closure plate rests on a cast rim inside the proud lip and does not interfere with the lid.

A hollow 18" diameter sphere of 3/16" thick Lead weighs 38.7 pounds (too much). The same hollow sphere of Tin weighs 24.8 pounds (just right), which is why I think it is made of Tin and the pot made for keeping consumables cool (milk, cheese, butter, etc.), as in a mountain stream.

I will scrape metal from the rough interior, at the proud lip, to send for assay to determine the base metal. To whom should I turn for this assay? There is also a Chinese / Japanese / Asian / Indian cartouche on the base, like a Mfg's mark, which I will post for someone to identify / read / translate.

Forgive me for "teasing" you with this (until I get pictures). As I put my hands on it again, when it is mine, I will verify dimensions, weight, and with a little help, what it is. Keeping its form and function, i.e. not melting it, is a possibility.

[Dusty Bannister]

BNE is very reliable and convenient. I would check with him to see what would work best for the XRF scan sample prep.

[Land Owner]

New data: Wall thickness is 15/64"





Weight of Jar
LEAD, calculated on 11.7" average diameter: 29.99#'s; not including 2 lids (too much)
TIN, calculated on 11.7" average diameter: 22.21#'s; not including 2 lids
ACTUAL WEIGHT: 22.0 #'s, not including 2 lids ==> strong suspicion that the jar is TIN based on weight.

ACTUAL WEIGHT of 2 lids: 3#'s
TOTAL WEIGHT of Jar and 2 lids: 25#'s

Multiple guesstimates of function / purpose of the jar:
Brazillian: Indian Water Jar
Polish: Wine fermentation
Americans (4): Water Jar, Milk (2), Food

Actual purpose: UNKNOWN ===> suspect a water jar

More pics to follow...

[Land Owner]

Interesting find at $4.00 per pound!!!

BARREL



Additional "sleeve" in the throat of the barrel



BOTTOM




LID 1

[Land Owner]

LID 2







INSIDE



CARTOUCHE (and I hope that is not upside down)



PASSIVE WATERPROOFING; found in the annulus between the barrel and the barrel sleeve. "Palm leaf", or bamboo, is suspect as a wick for moisture that swells and prevent both spillage and intrusion.

[fayettefatts]

Kimchi pot?

[Land Owner]

No one has definitively identified the jar. Could be, just don't know for sure. I think a clue lies in getting the cartouche translated.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

It sure looks like pewter. You could make a whole bunch of 20/1 if it is.

[Land Owner]

I intend to get a metal assay. If it is a compatible food or beverage metal, i.e. 100% tin, as a 50:1 (2%) addition to an alloy, I could melt it into 1,250 pounds of 49% lead and 49% wheel weights. Potentially, that's a lot of boolits! I am on the fence about melting it though...still, knowing which metal it is, one day it might come in handy...

[Rickf1985]

Is this it?
https://www.reemandansie.com/auction...lot=60072&sd=1

Take this image https://postimg.cc/30Rq2Rpk, or any of your other images, and right click on it and then click on "search image with Google lens".

https://lens.google.com/search?p=AV3...V0b1p3PT0iXQ==

[metricmonkeywrench]

ok... ill go there.... Funeral Urn?

[Land Owner]

Neither a funeral Urn nor a Chamber Pot.

Wonders never cease. I'm Old School and did not know an image could be searched on the Web in that manner.

Rickf1985 is Closest to the Pin!

Chinese pewter tea caddy, baluster form with removable cover and internal plug, seal mark to base, 20cm high. Sold for £180 [~$215 US]

bold emphsis and note added to quote

20 cm is just under 8 inches tall. Mine at 16 inches is twice that. All of the elements of the pewter "Chinese tea caddy" are there, the removable cover, the internal plug, just twice as much. "Seal mark to base" is assumed to mean a cartouche.

I searched the web for the cartouche ==> No Other Images Found

[405grain]

Why oh why couldn't it be a mug with a broken handle or a gaudy looking punch bowl with a big dent? Yes, finding tin is cool, but I'd cry if I had to melt down something that looks so nice.

[Winger Ed.]

ok... ill go there.... Funeral Urn?

My Dad used to say, "Save a buck where you can".
A whole family would fit in there.


I wouldn't melt it either.
It'd look too cool on a shelf in the house.

I'd make up a story to tell kids about how my Great Grand Dad was a crewmember on the gun boat in China
they made the old 'Sand Pebbles" movie about with Steve McQueen,
and he brought it home when he got out of the Navy.

[Land Owner]

My Tin hunting has brought me to quite a few pieces too nice to melt. My spouse has"confiscated" a few too (weight in parenthesis):

Wall sconces (1#), floor vase (5#), Goblets (4#), and now a water jug (25#)...

[dondiego]

My Tin hunting has brought me to quite a few pieces too nice to melt. My spouse has"confiscated" a few too (weight in parenthesis):

Wall sconces (1#), floor vase (5#), Goblets (4#), and now a water jug (25#)...

NEVER allow your wife to see the pewter find!

[Land Owner]

405grain and Winger Ed nailed it. I can't bring myself to melt the beautiful 25# "Tin Pot". Oh, I could in dire straits - starting with the collar insert and 2nd lid in that order. In the meantime, I will continue to search the Thrift Stores, Flea Markets, Garage Sales, and Curio, Consignment, 2nd Hand, and Antiques Shops for pewter relics with no emotional constraints (hiding them as best I can). I am "not hurting" for pewter at present. Still, relics, like this 25# "pot", are out there...I marvel at the (seeming) complexity-in-casting that created it. BNE, a sample is on its way...

[GregLaROCHE]

I’ve collected a lot of tin items. Most are kind of cool and I don’t melt anything down before I need the tin. My wife wishes I would.

[Land Owner]

The Bottom Line: I will tape the function (what I have learned) and the assay results inside the pot lid for future reference so my current CRS brain will not have to remember "the safe place" I put them. If it turns out to be Tin, and when / if a time comes, I won't go "all emotional" before MELTING this in-hand pot into 1# ingots. Making boolit alloy is why it was purchased.

"Hiding" boolit making constituents "in plain sight" is not a bad plan. I just don't need to turn them into ingots right now. Other, less attractive, pewter / tin sources will likely surface in the meantime. My tin sleuthing has been very productive.

So, in essence, a life sentence with "stay of execution" exists at present, which includes the goblets, the floor vase, and the wall sconces.

[kevin c]

Pewter like metalware from China seems to vary quite a bit in content. Don’t be too surprised if the analysis show a good amount of lead.

I just saw a collection of pewter at an estate auction house. Some were beat up plates that I would not have hesitated to melt for the tin content, but a couple pieces were really neat inkwells with holders for pens, maybe even just quills. Unfortunately I bid only at scrap valuation. I might have gotten both the keepers and good scrap tin if I’d figured in a bit more for what I might have kept. Live and learn.