Good score of COWW

Rally

NC Minnesota
Was out in SD trapping last couple weeks. In the north end of the two townships I was trapping was the closest gas pump for around 21 miles. Small station that did general maintenance in a farm community type place. Kind of a sideline business to the fuel delivery and grain elevators behind it. I was frequently there because I was driving around 150 miles a day checking traps. Most of the time when I was fueling (early or late) they were closed, but the last day I was there I went inside and asked the manager if they had any COWW to sell. Guy behind the counter says sure, I got a bunch. He took me back in the shop and he wasn't telling any lies. He had a small barrel full, nice ones to, some up to 8 oz. each! Had to talk to the manager for a price. She called the recycler to get going rate and shop manager weighed them on a LP scale. Barrel weighed 300 lbs before we cleaned up the floor! LOL Took the manager about 15 minutes to decide on a price, $40.00 and I got to keep the barrel and the SD license plate keeping the weights from falling out the bottom of the holes in the barrel. Put the barrel in my truck with a skid steer, lashed it down and came home. Sorted it out today. There was 11.5 ponds of steel, 1.6 lbs of zinc, and a brush used to apply rim sealer.
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And while I was away my lovely bride was out hitting the garage sales and found 90+ pounds for $10.00, but she wants the metal bucket. LOL
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The wife met me at the Dakota Magic casino on the SD- ND border on my way back. Our 42nd anniversary is this Tuesday but we both have stuff to do, so we kinda made a date of it. On the way back Friday we hit an estate sale.
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The candle sticks are solid and I got the whole works for $8.00. The kids were selling off the recently deceased parents estate and weren't doing very well due to the rain. Note the kerosene lantern on the right front corner of the scale, minus a globe. When we got to the sale there was nobody tending the sale in the garage. I had rounded up a couple pieces of pewter and nothing was price marked, so I went to the back door of the house and knocked. No answer. Went back in the garage and noticed the lantern and it looked like it was pewter. So I turned it upside down while holding the globe, but it slipped out of my hand and shattered all over the floor! OOps! Well as luck would have it, in the corner of the garage was a broom with a dust pan clipped to the handle. Couple minutes sweeping and the globe was cleaned up. And the lantern was pewter. I go back to the door and knock again and this time a young couple answer the door, all bundled up in coats and rain jackets. I told them what happened and they said no problem. Short conversation revealed the situation with the estate sale. Asked what I owed them and what I was doing with it. Wife goes over to another table and gets the little vase pictured and says $8.00. Deal. Think I'm about done hunting pewter and lead for awhile!!
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I like the looks of nice pewter also.
I'd probably re-globe the lamp and melt the rest down.

the wife done real well, she got enough tin there to cover the cash outlay without even breaking a sweat.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
The only things I've ever found at a garage sale is broken toys, broken Walmart furniture and worn out baby clothes. Quit going to them years ago.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
All good deals, but it kinda hurts me to melt down nice pewter items, won't do it myself
unless they are ruined.

Bill

I was looking at some overpriced pewter at a flea market on day and made a deal on it. As I was paying for it the sellers asked me if I was a pewter collector. I should have lied, but I told them the truth, and they gave me my money back and said "no sale". A similar thing happened a year or so later, and I ended up telling those people that I restore tin soldier sets, using original 19th century moulds, and pewter is the only correct metal to use. Those people thought it was fascinating and everything. From now on, if somebody asks if I'm a pewter collector, the answer will simply be "yup". Those people talked my leg off about making tin soldiers, and I like to have never gotten away from them. Fortunately, I know enough about non-ferrous casting to bore anybody.
 

Rally Hess

Well-Known Member
358156,
I was at a sale with my wife about 5 weeks ago. Classy looking lady had a full pewter tea set. She had collector price on it. Told her what my intentions were and she turned pale. Said the set had been in her family for three generations! She didn’t want me to melt it, but she had it for sale! Lol

Bill,
I don’t get attached to many things. I appreciate the work that goes into some of the pieces. I’ve bought some pieces from all over including miniature statues from Israel. My wife “borrowed” a little cream and sugar set, a small covered tea pot, little plates and a couple cups, so she could have a tea party with my two youngest granddaughters. Haven’t seen them since!
Fiver,
I was kinda surprised at the amount of tin also. The lady my wife bought it from said her husband just cast for muzzle loaders.
 
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Rally Hess

Well-Known Member
I’m keeping the lantern Fiver. Doesn’t look to have ever been lit. Wife’s got several globes that will fit it. One is kinda “potbellied” that looks kinda “guyish”. Seems like a fair trade for the pewter she swiped!
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
Well, finally got this all in ingot form, yesterday afternoon and early this morning. With the barrel of coww I bought in Sd. and the wifes garage sale find, ended up with 303 full ingots of coww plus 7 small ingots. Also 79 ingots of SOWW, and 7 ingots of solder.
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With the bucket of solder the wife bought was a lead pot with a ladle set in the solder I couldn't see until I heated it up this morning. Kind of a neat ladle with an insert with serrated bottom. Maybe somebody can identify who made it.
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There were some real beefy weights in that barrel and a good sized run throughout. Wanted to get them done this morning, because we had a tax appointment this afternoon. That was a real killjoy!!
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Here is another little ladle somebody threw in with one of my wifes garage sale deals. Looks like it may have started life as a cream pitcher. It has a small spout on it, but kinda hard to see from the picture. Probably somebody making jigs.
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That's one heavy barrel I got out out of my shop.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
That is a nice pile of ingots. Lots of future shooting there.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
Yeah, the kids will probably be shooting most of this stuff. I had plenty when I ran into this deal. The lic. plate in the bottom of the barrel was a 1984. Not that that was an indicator of how old the weights were for sure, but they had been in that shop a long time. They were nice and dry and all the steel and zinc were right on the top.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Wow! I'm not sure what impressed me most.....the lead, or how you managed to get it rendered out in icy weather, or your wife hunting some of that down for you.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
Ian,
The cool weather makes it easier, just takes a little more fuel. The wife is a keeper, she already sold the metal bucket after putting a floral arrangement in it too. If you look at the picture of the buckets she brought home, there is roughly 6 lbs of tin. The plastic bucket is all salvaged solder and the lead pot was also 3/4 full, with the ladle froze in it! The really strange thing about it was the lady she got it from said her husband just cast for muzzle loaders. There were lots of soft lead sinkers in the bottom of the metal bucket, but all that solder, pewter, and bar solder. What would he need all that tin for?
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
That bigger ladle looks like the ones that I used to find in auto garages for pouring the old babbit bearings, or so I was told their purpose was.

I also see I'm not the only one with a gasoline plumbers furnace. I love running that thing. Dangerous as all getout I suppose, but wow, what a man toy! Ran mine at dusk once and the flame shoots up a good 2 feet in the fading light.
 

Gary

SE Kansas
Looks like that little white bucket got to close to the fire. Great score, that definitely would last me a lifetime.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I have a pair of ladles shaped like that with the 2 spouts.
pouring Babbitt bearings in old car engines is exactly what they were used for, I already used up the Babbitt i got with them.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
Brett,
I've had that plumbers pot (No. 22) for at least 25 years. It worked better when I got it than it does now. Several ends off weights have melted into the cone over the years and I'm intending to give it a good cleaning soon. Flame often goes out when I remove the pot to pour ingots and it doesn't like wind much.The wife was listening to me complain about it at dinner last summer, and I explained I was a bit worried about breaking something that has gone through so many heat cycles. About a week later she brought one home from a garage sale! (good women) It was missing the pot, pot shroud, and had been painted white. So if I twist something off at least I have some parts. She was going to turn it into a yard ornament if I didn't want it. The real shocker is the price of Coleman brand fuel. Wal Mart generic stuff was $11.00 a gallon last year and Coleman brand was $13.00 a gallon this year!

Gary,
I put a layer of snow in those buckets and then put the hot clips in them. If I'm not watching I forget to put more snow in it and they melt the buckets some. There was just short of 4 gallons of clips in that run of weights. When they cool down I just put the whole thing in my recycling can and give them to the recycling yard when I sell aluminum cans.

Fiver,
You have any idea how much tin is in a bar of Babbit? I looked on the calculator and it doesn't list babbit.
Did your ladles have that divider in front of one spout also?
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Rally, I've never used anything but pump gas in mine. Coleman fuel is just a purer, cleaner form of unleaded gas, white gas they used to call it. The advertising copy I have on those types of furnaces plainly state "...runs on regular gasoline available everywhere". I prefer the non-ethanol stuff and a can of "Mechanic in a Bottle" type carb cleaner once a year or so seems to help. The weak spot on mine is the steel cable in the burners heat tube, the coil that vaporizes the fuel. Mine had a lot of rust in it due to being stored in a barn, or maybe outside!, before I got it. Not like I can get parts anymore.

Good wife you got there!