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As per the title really.

Recently got my hands on an old Voss-pattern Rapier, from around the end of Rogue Trader I think (it appears in the 1990-91 catalgoue as "rapier 2"). It is white metal and I'm unsure if I need to take extra precautions due to lead. It is the oldest model I've ever got.

When in doubt, take the safety steps. I want to say sometime in the late 80s they cut the lead, but that’s just a guess. I know I have some actual lead GW, but only one or two minis. And I’ve been here a while.

Lead minis are significantly softer then “safe” alloys. You would probably know if you had one. But I say that as someone who has, so might be biased.

The announcement on discontinuing the use of lead was in a 1996 or '97 White Dwarf if I remember correctly. I'm not sure if GW continued to sell the Rapier model after the change. I bought one sometime from '96 to '98, but can't say if it was before or after.

White metal (as in lead free metal) is, as the name suggests, lighter in color. It's also harder. That might help you figure out what you're dealing with.

As has been said, best to be safe and just pretend it's lead anyway, but there are some ways to tell:

- Lead is more dull in colour, less silver and has a very slight brown tone. White metal will be more, well... white. After years of wear and paint etc it can be a bit herd to see though

- Lead is more flexible. Pewter will definitely bend, but you get a kind of cracking/ creaking sound from it when you do. Lead will bend more smoohtly and easily. Hard to tell on its own, but if you have a white metal mini to compare it to you might notice.

- Lead is more dense. I don't know the exact numbers but that's easy to google. Get yourself a glass of water and some scales, and pretend you are Archimedes as you measure the displacement to calculate density... I would do this for fun tbh haha but probably not something most people could be bothered with

I misread the title as "Why" not "When".
And I was confused.

I'll echo the others who are telling you take precautions regardless. Better safe than sorry!

Thanks everyone

I'll be cautious anyway, sensible advice.

I suspect it is lead free given the colour and consistency is very similar to my recent MTO nobz or last production run Steel Legion models.

Thanks again!

In the UK, GW stopped using lead and switched to 'white metal' in 1997, around the time of the Epic 40,000 release (the infamously unsuccessful edition). White Dwarf 208 if I remember rightly. However, not all production switched over immediately. I have some lead 2nd ed Necrons, and they weren't released until the following year, after Gorkamorka came out.

In the USA, lead seems to have been phased out a lot earlier--in the early 1990s. Maybe it was due to different safety regulations. It's not uncommon to find GW minis from American sources that are pewter / white metal, while the same vintage from UK sources contain lead. Space Marine / Titan Legions 6mm metal minis, for example. I've got some 2nd ed Epic Space Marine Predator tanks that came from a sealed blister sold in the USA around 1993, and they're lead-free.

I've also noticed that other miniature manufacturers based in the US tend to offer lead-free products, whereas companies from the UK and Australia often use lead (presumably because it's cheaper).

Lots of older models stayed in GW's back catalogue and kept being produced long after the switch to white metal.

I'm famously paranoid about lead minis and try to avoid them where possible. This has led to some exorbitantly expensive expeditions, e.g. to find Epic Tyranid Bio-Titans in their original packaging so I can be 100% sure they were released during 3rd edition Epic and therefore cast lead-free.

(Apart from safety worries, lead minis are more easily bent, which is annoying when it comes to things like spears or spiky bits. They are easier to convert due to the softer metal, though.)

I've got a feel for the white metal ones.

Take a pin vice underneath the model and drill a hole. If you can push the vice into the surface, you've got lead.

Zenithfleet wrote:
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In the USA, lead seems to have been phased out a lot earlier--in the early 1990s. Maybe it was due to different safety regulations. It's not uncommon to find GW minis from American sources that are pewter / white metal, while the same vintage from UK sources contain lead. Space Marine / Titan Legions 6mm metal minis, for example. I've got some 2nd ed Epic Space Marine Predator tanks that came from a sealed blister sold in the USA around 1993, and they're lead-free.

In the USA, it happened earlier because of a proposed bill that would ban lead in "children's toys" in NY state. This bill DID NOT PASS (didn't get enough votes to get higher up the legislative chain) but it did take several YEARS to get to that point - and initially, it looked like it had enough support to get across the line. Ral Partha USA was the main player in metal miniatures in the USA at the time, and they moved to a lead free "Ralidium(tm)" a higher tin-content white-metal-alloy just-in-case it did actually get over the line. This was done at some considerable expense, and wasn't cost effective to "reverse" when the bill didn't pass. GW switched to a similar alloy for their USA stuff for the same reasons (they did not want to risk not being able to sell their product in the USA if they hadn't gone lead-free).

BTW: "White metal" ISN'T one particular kind of metal, it's a "Family" of alloys with similar properties, to do with ease of casting, detail retention and relative hardness known as White-metal-alloys (WMAs), not all of which contained lead. Pewter (a tin-lead/something else blend) was ONE sort of WMA. Ralidium, while no longer containing lead, was STILL a WMA. GW, Ral Partha, and a bunch of other metal miniature makers (like Grenadier), all used similar WMAs (the exact percentages of tin/lead varied, as did the third metal ... some swapped out the lead for Bismuth, for example. Others upped the tin content (very similar castability to the lead-alloys, but a much harder casting). The alloy GW used for a few years in the late 90s had a much higher tin content - the castings were harder (you couldn't dent it with your fingernail) and much shinier. They were also harder to cut (my local GW store broke several pairs of nippers trying to remove bits from castings in one-go - the trick was to take several bites at it.) and you had to do any cutting with nippers inside a baggie, or the piece you wanted would go shooting off like shrapnel.

I never thought of that baggie trick!

Damn, I still got one lead mini.

You can easily pick up lead test kits at major hardware stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot, or online, for less than $10. Why guess, when you can test? Use of these kits is common among old toy restorers, who come up against this in both paint and materials often.

Don't freak out about lead. Handling them properly is not a significant risk.

Just don't file them, and wash your hands afterwards.

If you're really paranoid, wear vinyl/nitrile gloves and prime them as soon as they're ready.

I actually like the ease of modification and cleanup of lead alloy miniatures. I don't seek them out, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest when I get some