Item found at 100+ home site

[rusty]

My family and I went on our first MD'ing hunt this weekend. There had once been a house built on the site by my wife's Great Grandfather. the family estimates the house was built over 100 years ago. The house has been torn down for some time now. I just got my first detector this week. It is a Ace 350. Any way, we found this item and none of us knows what it could be. It is approximately 5 to 6 inches long and is heavy. it also has 48-52 written on it. I don't recall what reading it showed on my Ace.

[coinnut]

Hey Rusty, welcome to American Detectorist. Congrats on joining the hobby too. It's hard to ID big iron like that, but we usually look at cast iron stoves first. If we can't place that piece on a stove, then it may just be some farming equipment that may never get identified. It probably rang like a large coin or even overloaded the machine. Most machines will read large iron as a coin. It is just too massive to read correctly.

Edit: I assumed it was iron but after reading your other post, It may not be any of the above. Is it lead or a composite including lead?

[Timewarpdigger]

Sorry I ahve no idea what it might be but welcome and good luck hunting. Safe & HH

[rusty]

I appreciate you all looking at it. I was just curious as to what it is. I am stumped. Thanks again for your help.

[del]

I'm wondering if its a type of lead bar for "soldering" cast iron pipes or other to seal them . back around the early 1900's to 1920's lead was used help seal flashing around chimneys , roof pipes ect. and a thin bar would be an easy way the use it.

[Jim D]

Hello Rusty, I believe it is a lead bar ingot that is used for casting bullets or sinkers or what ever you need to cast. The glass factory that I worked for cast lead hammers out of the ingots.
The ingots were about 2" or so wide 3/4 of an inch thickor so and you could take off as much as you needed to melt down. As in the photo the ends are cut off. You can google lead bars or ingots and see various types and sizes of ingots you can buy. Hope this helps.

P.S. I just joined American Detectorist a couple days ago and this is my 1st post.

[tanacat]

I've found a couple bars similar to that, one had an eagle stamped on it. When I cleaned/scraped it looked like silver, was hopeful it was as it rang up high like silver, but it was pretty darn heavy. Was told they were lead bar ingots, like Jim said.

[brownbeardad]

in the 1800's and early 1900's lead was used to make joints in water mains and services. the utility i worked at had a program to aggressively remove these services from the water system. this has become a lost art and not practiced in the US for many years. but these ingots may be the stock used to melt and seal the joints. this was the only way to make the system watertight back then. the stock was not 100% lead but an alloy, unfortunately this lost art has been gone so long the composition of the ingots are not known.

[rusty]

Thanks everyone. I thought at first it might be a weight for a window since the house has been torn down for some time. I think the ingot is the right track though. the ends seem like they could have been melted. Thank you all for the comments and your help