Looks like he priced your stuff as vanadium flake.
Ingots were trading between $12 and $26/lb last month - depending on purity and market.


Probably not a bad price for unwanted paperweights, though.

Art,

Any chance you can send me about 5 grams? I can test the purity for you.

sweet!

Thanks for the offer but the purity and source mine are stamped on the ingot, so testing isn't necessary. In 4 years, this is the only serious offer I've had, so I'm happy with the $5.25 a lb, as the other places will only buy in 1 ton increments, nothing smaller. This place is close to home, so I can drop it off... Very easy!!

Shouldn't you wash the ingots if you are going to put them in your mouth:p

I took the "vanadium" ingots to the scrap metal buyer on Thursday and we determined that they are not Vanadium, but this stuff instead...

Zamak (formerly trademarked as ZAMAK[1] and also known as Zamac) is a family of alloys with a base metal of zinc and alloying elements of aluminium, magnesium and copper. Zamak alloys are part of the zinc aluminium alloy family; they are distinguished from the other ZA alloys because of their constant 4% aluminium composition.[2] The name zamak is an acronym of the German names for the metals of which the alloys are composed: Zink (zinc), Aluminium, Magnesium and Kupfer (copper).[2] The New Jersey Zinc Company developed zamak alloys in 1929. While zinc alloys are popularly referred to as pot metal or white metal, zamak is held to higher industrial standards.
The most common zamak alloy is zamak 3, but zamak 2, zamak 5 and zamak 7 are still commercially used.[2] These alloys are most commonly die cast.[2] Zamak alloys (particularly #3 and #5) are frequently used in the spin casting industry.
A large problem with early zinc die casting materials was zinc pest, owing to impurities in the alloys.[3] Zamak avoided this by the use of 99.99% pure zinc metal, produced by New Jersey Zinc's use of a refluxer as part of the smelting process.
Zamak can be electroplated, wet painted, and chromate conversion coated well.[4]

Turns out, the "V" on the ingots was the smelting company's ID and the handheld analyzer they used indicated the precise alloy combination as "Zamak 2", which is only worth .25 cents a lb, so I left with a whopping check for $58, instead of $1260. Needless to say, we were all a bit disappointed but at least the 4 ingots are gone now...

Shoulda saved 'em for the PPOT X-mas gift exchange.

Yes, good idea!! Everyone needs 4 ingots of Zamak alloy!!

Handheld analyzer? I'm interested in knowing a bit more about this gizmo...

the real question is, were they safe to put in your mouth?

Thermo Niton XL3T Portable XRF Analyzer Spectrometer Xray Fluorescence innov NDT on eBay! likely a handheld XRF. We have one of these at work. Fun little toy.

Even better...SPECTRO XEPOS HE Overview

What I get to play with on a daily basis. Can give you much higher accuracy and precision in the trace and rare earth elements. Apart from doing ICP-OES I can give you the best data in a rather short time. Plus its a non-destructive.


Also, the the Thermo Scientific is better then the Thermo Niton from my experiences and the calibration is easier to customize.

Not exactly handheld though...

If the ingots fit in your mouth you must also have big hands...

Ha! Tell that to our wellsite guys...Weighing in at 80 kg it sure is a beast.

The handheld analyzer on eBay looks like the one they used. They showed how it works on brass, vanadium and bronze. Very cool tool!!

And Art if you are ever looking for oil it will help with that. Ya just have to know what you are looking for.

I work with it's bigger brother. I wish ya would have given me a chance to scan it to atleast get ya a better idea of what ya had.

BR,

It was Zamak #2, based upon analysis of the 4 60lb ingots. I didn't want to send it anwhere and had been trying to get rid of it for 4 years!