[Was: Con Find] WARNING!

> At 23:30 2002-06-07 -0400, Wilson, Glenn M. wrote:

That's bad news indeed! Your minis have contracted pewter plague. The gray
powder is tin in it's non-metallic form.
Metallic tin can spontaneously convert to non-metallic tin at lower
temperatures, one should never store one's minis cold.

The worst part of it, and the reason it's called 'plague' is that it is an
autocatalyst, i.e. the presence of non-metallic tin spreads! YOU DON'T
WANT THAT 'POWDER' TO TOUCH ANOTHER MINI!

In fact, the best thing to do is probably to get rid of all minis with gray
spots, and put all the other minis in qurantine. Make sure that you have a
good covering varnish on all your minis.

This is, in my experience, mainly a problem with a few older miniature
manufacturers, most manufacturers these days, I hope, inoculate their minis
with a small amount of antimony, which at least slows it down so that it

hardly is a problem, if it does not stop it entirely.

A friend of mine had this problem a couple of years ago. It ended up with him
throwing away a couple of hundred rather nice 25mm vikings. No to mention
spending a long and nervous time watching and inspecting his other couple of
thousends of minis!

____