There is an increasing number of criminal offenses that involve the cutting up or destruction of steel components. The most common of these is the oxygen cutting of steel safes. Also on the increase is the theft of late model cars and trucks. These vehicles are taken to isolated sites and dismantled for the resale of expensive parts. With car and truck parts becoming increasingly more expensive this form of theft is likely to continue.
In a previous paper [1] the interpretation of a variation in trace element content as a function of manufacture was used to show that two parts of a vehicle dismantled by cutting with oxygen had originally been one. The principle has wide application in forensic metallurgy, and this communication describes its employment in a case involving the unlawful possession of silver.
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