Hey Hive Peeps,
Since starting metal detecting, I have found metals that are not junk in terms of value...but not silver or gold as well. With metal detecting, the ultimate goal is to find expensive metals and historically significant relics/coins, but we also find a lot of "junk." You know--old copper pipes, fishing sinkers, and the list goes on. While finding a few good finds, I have also found pounds of lead and a couple pounds of copper. It is also important to help the environment at the same time! The proper metal detecting etiquette is to pick up "trash" as well.
I decided this week to go to a scrap yard and recycle my excess metal. I had two pounds of copper and 20 pounds of lead! Almost all the lead I collected came from fisherman losing their sinkers in the river. It felt good to get 20 pounds of lead out of our water system!
(It is always a good idea to check your scrap one more time before getting rid of it. I kept a few fishing sinkers, and I'm glad I kept this one! I suspect this is a handmade sinker from a mid-1800s Minié ball cast (Civil War Era). They likely just added more liquid lead to the cast to make it a sinker. I would guess the cast was from the mid-1800s and from the oxidation on the lead, I suspect this is well over 100 years old. Very cool!)
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Going to a scrap yard may seem intimidating, but everyone was really nice and were very helpful for my first time. They had me drive up to guy sorting the different metals. They gave me 49 cents/pound for lead and over $2/pound of copper. I made 15 dollars (they always round up to the nearest dollar at this place) for 22 pound of scarp metal. I was pleased, and it was an adventure. Not bad for keeping the "junk" I dug out of the ground. Sure, once they melt it down and pay the workers, they are selling the lead for over twice that, but I still made more than if I didn't keep the scrap...or worse, let it keep contaminating the fish in the river!
My receipt for scraping the metal. I had to scan the bar code at a machine there, which popped out 15 bucks! Sweet!
Cheers!
Stay hungry for treasure my friends!