Old Nickel Ingot

[RxForPain]

The wife and I were out looking through a few antique stores today and I came across what appears to be a very old nickel ingot. Produced by Great Western Smelting & Refining Co. It has "XXXX" on both ends along with "Nickel". It is 9" x 2" x 7/8", it is just shy of 4lbs. Any information anyone has would be greatly appreciated. I could only find one reference to it online. Paid $40

Here is the link for a pic.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa11 ... C01534.jpg

[bankmining]

Very cool looking and at $10/lb. nice buy.

[jerry278]

A while back a member here post an 'ingot' that looked VERY similar to that one. Was marked nickel and such and had the same color. We finally discovered that it in fact wasnt pure nickel but an alloy. Apparently, the individual the member bought it from said they "kept it in the attic to keep out ghosts"! I hope that member sees this post so they can comment.

Anyways I dont mean to rain on anybodys parade but I have a strong feeling thats an alloy and not pure nickel. However Id be happy for your sake if it was in fact pure nickel. Try to clean it a bit maybe, but pure nickel just have a much more metallic and lustorus color despite its age.

Hope some people who know more about these nickel 'ingots' will comment.

Good luck

[jerry278]

I stand corrected. If its the same bar as in this link, than you may have hit the jackpot! Apparently, if it is the same bar, it has some historic/numis value.

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/7919528

Looks a bit different, may still want to confirm that it is in fact .999 nickel.

[RxForPain]

That link you put up is the only reference I could find. They look very similiar with only a few very small differences. The "XXXX" at the end is slightly different from mine. The live auctioneers site dates it in 1920-1940 range. If nothing else... it is just cool looking. Told the wife that we would more than likely never see another one like it.

Not sure if I should try and clean it or not.

[jerry278]

Yeah on second thought, you might not want to try to clean it. Defintely an interesting piece none the less.

Not quite sure who'd you have to go to however to get it 'tested' or confirmed of the quality.

Defintely a piece to hold on if for nothing else the historic value.

Congrats on the find.

[Thogey]

Even if the it's not pure Ni. It is a very cool item and is surely worth more than 40 bucks.

[RxForPain]

Well it is not pure nickel... magnet will not stick to it. My cheapo metal detector says it is silver and gives the same reading as an ASE. The nickel indicator picked up a regular .05 nickel as nickel, but not the ingot. So who knows at this point. Anyone have any suggestions about next step to find out what it really is?

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

I think there is an electronic non-destructive piece of equipment that can do an analysis. You just have to know somebody. If you just want to determine value, you could always put it up for auction here and show your wife how smart you are when you spend the profits on her. I would certainly bid on it.. I think it is really cool.

[RxForPain]

Well... after doing some more research I think I have some idea of the metal composition. It appears that "XXXX Nickel" stands for a bearing alloy that has nickel added to it.

"Babbitt" refers to a bearing alloy consisting typically of tin, lead, antimony, and copper. "XXXX Nickel" is a trade name for such an alloy that also contains a small percentage of nickel.

Issac Babbit was given the patent in 1839. I found a magazine ad from 1915 with an advertisement by Great Western Smelting and Refining Co. stating they made Babbit along with many other types of metals.

There seem to be various compositions depending on the type of bearing it would be used for.

Ones without the nickel:
90% tin, 10% copper
89% tin, 7% antimony, 4% copper
80% lead, 15% antimony, 5% tin
76% copper, 24% lead
75% lead, 10% tin
67% copper, 28% tin, 5% lead

Not the jackpot, but still a cool and interesting slice of history. Still not sure about the date the bar was cast, but the search goes on. I would imagine since this is an industrial metal alloy that most ingots have been long since been melted down and used so I would think this is a pretty rare ingot.

[RxForPain]

One last tid bit... After doing some searching on Babbit XXXX Nickel it appears it sells for about $19/lb unless you want to purchase by the metric ton. Learn something new everyday.

[HoardCopperByTheTon]

I need that for the hoard.