Old pewter is 95% tin, modern pewter is still over 90%. If you can't do anything else with it, throw in an equal weight of lead and you'll have 50/50 solder, which is very useful stuff. You can also use the pewter to sweeten up cheap solder.
I took nearly all my old copper and brass to the scrappie a couple of years ago now, came out with $200 and spent it on plants for the garden on the way home. From memory, I think the plants died.
Well done on ridding the world of that huge load of half-crank trimmers Bob, you did your civic duty that day. Might have been able to rescue a few carburetors from them, and possibly a few bump feeders that weren't worn out, but that is about it. I don't think the steel content (crankshaft and drive-cable mainly) worries the scrap industry a whole lot, they can rake it up from the bottom of the melt so long as they do it fairly quickly before it contaminates the aluminium much, and they can still end up with usable low-grade aluminium. Steel has a much higher melting point, but it is a nasty contaminant, a fraction of a percent makes the aluminium brittle, prone to corrosion, and generally only suitable for saucepans.
