What is this metal?

[Chronos]

Just make sure to keep the cops out of the back 40-- That’s where the loot is buried!

And how common is it to have brass with total impurities less than 1 part in 10,000?

[What_Exit]

@yearofglad

Yeah, I was pretty sure they were smaller than you thought when you asked if they were smaller than a pea.

Disappointing, indeed, but mystery solved. (Well, the mystery of the metal; the mystery of why my grandfather was saving them is still present - maybe he thought they were gold, who knows?)

Thanks for all the opinions and for the testing.

Was your grandfather a home hobbyist? I used to work at a stamping plant (metal) and I have a small amount of brass & copper waste pieces for potential use with either trains or miniatures.

I have all kind of odds and ends in my basements in plastic & glass containers and even old cigar boxes for hobby, DIY and woodworking purposes. Anything from old electronic parts, wooden & plastic beads, spare coils for pinball machines, magnets of all shapes and sizes, loads of screws, bolts and hardware, etc.

[busterpickle]

Was so hoping for a gold find for you.

[Chronos]

Quoth Qadgop:

Just as you predicted, sam. You da metal man.

Apparently, he’s specifically da Brass Man.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Chronos

Apparently, he’s specifically da Brass Man.

Yes, one thing you can always count on with samclem–he never untaps during your untap phase.

[watchwolf49]

Locksmithing? …

[yearofglad]

@What_Exit

Was your grandfather a home hobbyist? I used to work at a stamping plant (metal) and I have a small amount of brass & copper waste pieces for potential use with either trains or miniatures.

I have all kind of odds and ends in my basements in plastic & glass containers and even old cigar boxes for hobby, DIY and woodworking purposes. Anything from old electronic parts, wooden & plastic beads, spare coils for pinball machines, magnets of all shapes and sizes, loads of screws, bolts and hardware, etc.

As mentioned before, he was into fiddling with electronics, but I’m not sure brass is helpful there - no idea. Not really into model trains (although he was an engineer of actual trains and was later a master mechanic for Burlington Northern). So maybe the electronics aspect.

And no other jars of anything odd in the basement - he had jars of screws, washers, and other standard fasteners and stuff - but this was the only “weird” jar he had.

[Surreal]

@samclem

UPDATE.

Brass.

53.40% copper
46.60% zinc

The granules were pretty damn small. With a 10X loupe, they looked at first like panned gold flakes but not quite. Too craggy and irregular.

Interesting. This is a very unusual brass alloy that’s not really used these days (much of the literature I could find on it dated from the 1920s-1930s). The microstructure would primarily be “beta” alloy brass, which has a higher strength than the alpha alloy but poorer ductility/fracture toughness. It would not be easy to cut with a knife at ambient temperature. It order to be formed it would have had to be “hot worked” (at a temperature higher than the recrystalization temperature) or cast. I suspect that the fragments shown here were originally from a casting that shattered, which explains the jagged appearance.

I also suspect that the larger fragments were deliberately removed and/or smashed again in order to simulate the appearance of gold flakes.