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Linotype is rarely used in the newspaper business these days and has not been in much use for probably 30 years or more. That means true linotype sources have been depleted all these years, and it opens the gate for the shady folks to offer phony linotype for sale. When I see small 1 pound or 4 pound ingots for sale on E-Bay, I have to wonder whether the product is truly linotype of just plain wheel weights. When newspapers used to melt their used linotype letters for reuse, they would usually be melted in a large container and poured into really large ingot moulds. A linotype ingot might weigh anywhere from 25 to 50 pounds, and when I see smaller 1 to 5 pound ingots being advertised as linotype, it raises a red flag for me.
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I can attest to that fact that the ingots from newspapers were very large. As a Ludington Daily News (Michigan),paperboy in the late 50's, I witnessed the Saturday morning ritual of re-melting the type into ingots. They were cast into pigs that had a slotted hole in one end so that a steel hook could be inserted to drag them on the concrete floor. They were not
little pieces.