Type prices?

In the U.K. I have been offered only a £1 a kilo

platenprinter’s right - that’s about the going rate for *scrap* type.

If your stuff isn’t worn, and the buyer intends to use it for printing rather than melting down…well, I think there are a lot of variables there to consider. 10pt Times New Roman would get you a much lower price than Cancelleresca Bastarda, for example. Have a look on eBay for your location, and see what similar founts have sold for - that’s probably the best advice.

n

J. F. Sir, ramblings from the U.K. Not completely compatible with The U.S.A. but pro rata not much different.
I did a little check yesterday Wednesday 18th Dec. and was quoted £970 per metric tonne, 97 pence sterling per Kilo?
An absolutely pathetic price, (if you are selling) but here in the U.K. traditionally, (no pun intended) the SHREWD, CRAFTY, TIGHT, T******G B******S (Scrap dealers, processors), take your pick, drop the price leading up to Christmas, because they know that, builders plumbers and the like are going to take their scrap in to support the funds for the festive season!! . .The rate begins to creep back up in the new year.
The pitch yesterday was, and has been for some time, *of course Sir Printers Lead is harder to process, because of the Tin & Antimony content* up to a point Hogwash, & B******T etc a good % ends up as material for the Re-enactment, guys with Muzzle Loaders etc, and they will not know, or care,! what the precise content or eventual weight may be, as long as they can blow a dirty great hole in the target, and retrieve their missiles from the sand trap, they are Happy, and wether there raw material, was based on 10/16 Monotype or 4/12 Linotype, approx in each case, is irrelevant, in view of the possibility that they (the shooters), are just as likely to blow their own heads of, with an ancient original weapon or even a dodgy Proofed Repro,,
Apologies for the above, not strictly relevant, but maybe a little negotiating point, when trying to sell Type etc, But as has been suggested before and posted here on B. P. perhaps, give existing/remaining Typefounders/Typesetters a little opportunity, to buy back and reuse, original type, at better than scrap price rate.

A tiny follow-up: brand new 10/17 type alloy only costs around £7 per kilo.

Given the additional expense of remelting, the time and effort needed to do so, the uncertainty of what the actual composition of scrap type is, and the fact that most people who’d buy it to reuse in casting aren’t the richest of folk…well, the scrap price is never going to be that high.

But, of course, that’s *scrap*: i.e. stuff that’s of no practical use. If it’s usable type, then your price can of course be higher: our newly-cast type works out at around £30 per kilo, for reference.