Pewter and Tin

[Robarons]

Recently I have been on a pewter kick, buying it when ever I see it. Most sources say its a high Tin Alloy with purities raging from 70% to 95% Tinng th with most pewter being on the high end.

Now pewter/tin is a exotic metal with most yards near me not excepting it. I have not extensively asked for its acceptance, but from what yard I do visit they will accept it at Brass prices, $1.50 a pound or so.
But Tin trades at $10+ currently. With this in mind if I gather 100 or more pounds of pewter it may capture the interest of a yard and I could do a deal with them. With this in mind I would like to hear some opinions on scrapping tin/pewter and if I am approaching this correctly. Also any people directly in the scrap market like Dr. Cad would be great for any advice!

Some details on the pewter I am collecting is the antique stuff as bowls, mugs, and different figures. Clearly marked pewter this stuff is high grade and nice, but for the most part the metal content exceeds the antique value. For instance I have a pewter trophy from the 1930's etc. A friend of mine has bought and casted these into bars with ease as well.

Thanks for reading!

[Thogey]

Dr. Cadmium please.

I love the scrap forum.

[psi]

I had no idea the price of tin was that high, looks like it's higher than nickel a lot of the time. Going by some of the sayings with the word 'tin' in them, I'm guessing a lot of people would be surprised to learn of its value.

[natsb88]

A lot of people (even in the industry) also use "tin" as a slang term for sheet steel, so it tends to be associated with cheaper metal, which is not really the case.

[hobo finds]

Scrap Pewter
Pewter shall consist of tin based tableware with a minimum 84 % tin, may include soda-fountain boxes and cast figurines.
Equivalent to ISRI code RANKS.

http://www.recycle.net/

[Dr. Cadmium]

The word "tin" is very confusing with regards to scrap. Tin, or element Sn, is valuable. Not to be confused with light iron, aka "tin" or "shred". Also "tin cans" don't contain any Sn.

Pure tin is uncommon. You're not going to come across it very often, if ever.

Pewter is tin alloyed with other metals, usually antimony in newer products and lead in older products. Since it's mostly tin (as mentioned, over 80%), it's still more valuable most metals if you can gather enough of it together and find a buyer. Lead-free alloys are more desireable.

When it comes to pewter, scrap yards usually will:

1) Buy it as lead.

2) Buy it as brass.

The reason they do this is that it's hard to get a large quantity of it together. Lead and pewter are very similar physically. Yards that buy it as brass are recognizing it as a more valuable metal, though they may not actually get paid more for it (the company that buys their brass will).

Right now I'm experimenting with buying clean pewter, if anyone has 20 lbs or so lying around.

There are many pewter items that are worth far more than scrap.

[Robarons]

Well I have close to 100 pounds of Clean Pewter in the form of antique stuff ever your ever interested Dr. Cad or may have any leads for me. Feel free to drop a PM and we might be able to work out a deal.

Thats just it about its antique value-their isnt. Most of my pewter stuff is bought from flea markets, estate sales and antique stores/malls. For instance I picked up a couple Pewter bowls, I would judge that they are at least 40 years old if not older. One bowl was $5 for 1.25 pounds of straight clean pewter. This was at a 'professional' estate sale service with no buyers, I am sure I could have gotten it half off the nest day if I wanted to come back. I am sure that fancy patterns or makers of good condition pewter would fetch a higher price, but alot of the stuff is near useless for collectivity.

Its kinda like Scrap Sterling silver- lots of wonderful items, but it boils down to most of it heading to the scrap bin (like Tea service or flatware sets, etc.).