I killed about 6 hours today at an estate auction at a service station. There were three lots of wheel weights listed with no additional details. I quickly found the first two lots, both new lead weights. I expected them to sell higher that what I wanted to pay for scrap value. They went for $40 each lot and the buyer who bought both stacked one on top of the other and walked off with them so not a lot of weight there.
While I was conducting my pre-sale examination of those weights another bidder told me that there was a barrel of used weights in one of the service bays. When I checked that out I found the usual collection of weights, valve stems, steel parts, brake pads, and presumably the other stuff that makes you avoid handling the contents bare handed. The weights that I did check were all lead. This was a small steel barrel like grease comes in, probably 20 gallon or so and less than half full. I figured $35 would be a safe bid not knowing what was in the rest of the barrel. My guess was about 125# of whatever.
When they got to the barrel the bidding started slowly but built momentum quickly. The buyer ended up at $60 plus a 10% commission. I heard him remark to someone that the scrapyard pays $1 a pound for that stuff. I think he is in for a letdown. The local yard pays 16 cents a pound for mixed steel/lead and 27 cents for all lead. They sell lead (either wheel weights or pure lead as available) for 70 cents. I was disappointed at missing the haul but probably not as disappointed as he is going to be if he purchased it planning to sell at a profit.
Just to have a happy ending to this story, I did make the trip to the scrap yard last week with a 5 gallon bucket of range brass along with some stuff my wife has been after me to get rid of. A few inches from the top, the bucket weighed 37 pounds and cartridge brass is paying 90 cents per pound right now.