Stovebolt.com Forums The Front Office The Greasy Spoon What to do with some Mercury

Not talking about Freddie Mercury albums..... Ha ha.

I have a medium size mason jar 3/4 filled with the stuff. My grandfather and father collected it over the years when they worked in the phone company. Now I have it. Local Hazardous Materials day wont take it. I recently thought about giving it to a NH college, but they are not interested as they can't prove the quality of it.

As with my carbon tet (At least it has some good uses) what do you do with this stuff? Maybe leave it in the mason jar and put it inside of the wall on my next remodel as a Easter egg for the next owner?

As a kid, Dad showed us how to clean penny's with it.

Don

There are businesses near you that buy liquid mercury. It can be worth quite a bit. Use your favorite search engine for help.

In 1957 when I started learning about electronics a fellow in our village (who was teaching me) and I would sit on his porch taking mercury batteries apart and putting the mercury in a jar. About every month a man passing through would buy it from him. I always figured it was cigarette money for him, but he was an interesting guy and there wasn't a lot to do in the evenings except listen to radio programs...which we often did, also. We never thought about it being dangerous, but it didn't seem to afeftc me vrey muhc.

We used to play with small amounts of mercury, roll the little balls around. Thermostats used mercury, thermometers too. We did experiments, seeing if lead or steel would float.

I recall that putting pennies in mercury would basically plate them with mercury. They were cheap "dimes".

Whatever you do, don't play with it and then try to taste it. I have it on good authority that this will cause your hair to fall out and start growing out of your ears. Also it with stiffen all your joints, make you fat and grumpy, and intolerant of kids on your lawn.
Your wife will claim that you are not the same person she married, but in the same breathe claim that your problem is that you're stubborn and adverse to change in any way.
Dangerous stuff, that mercury is.

When we were in high school they had a bottle of it in the chemistry lab. The instructor even showed us how to polish coins with it!
Now days, if you break a thermometer in school they practically lock the place down! How times have changed!

I will check into local tech businesses, but I am going to guess the response will be similar to UNH.

I agree, I played with small amounts as a young kid supervised by my dad.

It is very heavy jar. So much so I don't grab by the top in fear of it breaking. When moved it is carried by the bottom with two hands.