Safe to say that exactly zero businesses in history have made a business plan around selling lead as bullion, true, but history does have a very long track of mines making good coin from it all the same. Whether to make pipes, cannon balls or even the lowly fisherman’s sinkers lead has been there as an affordable commodity that is easy to shape and build with.

While relatively light gray when freshly molten, lead becomes the darkest of metals soon after with tarnish from exposure to air. Unlike other types of corrosion, however, that tarnish acts as a protective coat to prevent damage below the surface. Maligned as a poison, its danger comes primariily from small dissolved amounts in food and water rather than direct touch.