On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:16:27 -0500, "Wild_Bill"
wrote:

Rubbing mercury on coins was still a fairly regular pastime in the early
60s. too.. lots of kids/teens would do this, as small quantities of mercury
were quite prevelent in many home workshops then.

You mean like this?
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/mercury.jpg
The bottle is about 40% full. I used the missing mercury for various
illegal and entertaining purposes. Re-silvering ancient sextant
mirrors was one of my sidelines. I've also supplied some mercury to
several doctors for refilling their mercury sphygmomanometer. The
typical CFL bulb has about 3mg of Hg. When full, the bottle had a net
weight of about 2kg of Hg.

As usual, much of what we know about mercury is alarmist and wrong:
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
"Therefore, if all 272 million CFLs3 sold in 2009 were sent
to a landfill (versus recycled, as a worst case) – they
would add 0.12 metric tons, or 0.12 percent, to U.S. mercury
emissions caused by humans."


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