Bagged Pocahontas Coal

[Grant]

Good morning all

 

Is all the bagged Pocahontas Blacksmith Coal coming from The Penn Keystone Coal Co? http://www.penncoal.com/wst_page4.html The club, Rocky Mountain Smiths is considering bringing in a load and I am tasked with providing a proposal.  Any who, I found the Penn Keystone company, but wondered if there are other suppliers.  Any insight into this venture would be appreciated. -tks grant

[Glenn]

Many coal companies will sell to folks that bag the coal and charge for the service, then resale the coal in the bags.. Choose the coal you WANT and then find the mine that is digging it out of the ground. Make the best deal you can and buy as much as you can.

[Grant]

Good morning all

 

Glenn, yes this is true, however if you are contemplating a group purchase of 22.5 tons of blacksmith coal one would hope there exists a consensuses of "coal you want".  I have seen a couple of different styles of bags referred to a Pocahontas Blacksmith Coal.  I assume they are coming from one of the Pocahontas seams.  One style of bag had blue markings and one has a picture of a blacksmith on it.  It may have been early late styles from the same company.  When ABANA comes to town they bring bags of "Pocahontas Coal".  Several other clubs bring in truck loads of "Pocahontas Coal" for their blacksmithing communities.  I'm trying to determine  the major suppliers of bagged blacksmith coal, witch one we should be working with, and what other pit falls I'm missing.  -tks grant

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning,

 

We pay for trucking to pick it up at the mine. Truck and long dump trailer. Coal is featherweight to what they normally carry.

 

Neil

[Glenn]

A little history of coal then specifically Pocahontas Coal
 
A Little History of Coal, and Pocahontas #3 coal Reference BP0051
http://www.iforgeiro...ch&fromsearch=1

The time frame is the Carboniferous Period, which spans the period from 360 million years ago to 286 million years ago, about 70 million years before the dinosaurs. The bottom half of this period is known in the U.S. as the Mississippian Period, the top half as the Pennsylvanian Period, and coal formed as the Mississippian Period ended and the Pennsylvanian Period started.

Coal seams are fossilized accumulations of plants which lived and died in swamps that were so devoid of oxygen that few microbes or other critters could survive to feed on their remains. The first phase of coal known as "peat" thus developed. These swamps were interwoven with intricate, meandering river channels which eventually covered things with mud and silt. Subsequent deep burial by more sediments in succeeding geologic ages resulted in heat and pressure which transformed the peat into coal. Generally speaking, every 12 inches of coal thickness represents approximately 10,000 years of continuous peat accumulation. Coal seams in West Virginia average 3 feet in thickness, although they occasionally can be as thick as 25 feet.

When the swamp stretches across 2, 3, or more states, one part of the swamp can easily be different from the other, and form coal that, although in the same seam, is different in composition. That is why Poca 3 in Ky, Wv and Va may give 3 different analysis results.
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There are 117 named coal seams in West Virginia. Sixty-five seams are considered mine able. In the year 2000, coal was produced from 50 different coal seams.

Pocahontas Coal is broken down into 10 seams of Pocahontas coals, numbered #1 - #9 and Poca #3 rider. Pocahontas 3,5,6,9, and 3 Rider are the seams that have listed coal production. Total Pocahontas coal production was 7,697,193 tons or 4.72 per cent of total coal production.
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Which Pocahontas Coal are you talking about. Any of the 10 seams can be sold as Pocahontas Coal. There are other coal seams just as good or better as blacksmithing coal or metallurgical coal.  Contact the State Coal Association to get information.

 

Contact the mine directly and ask if they will sell you a truck load of coal and know of a trucking firm that can deliver a full truck load. A full load may be 28 tons give or take a bit.

[rthibeau]

ya can't beat nugget coal out of the Sewell Seam in West Virginia......look it up

[Steve Sells]

I love the Sewell seam :)

[Grant]

Thank you gentlemen -Are you buying bags of Sewell seam coal? 

 

This is more difficult than I imagined.  I found someone selling "Pocahontas"  blacksmith coal, on E-bay, in bags I'm familiar with, however I wouldn't necessarily expect them to give me the name of their vender.  I did expect someone on this list would know where ABANA is getting their conference coal, or some club would be bringing in a full load that would share their experience or even perhaps a retailer on the east side of the Mississippi.  It could all be coming from Penn Keystone but so far I haven't spoken to anyone that has done business with them.  By full load I mean 18 pallets, 50 - 50 pound bags per pallet, 22.5 tons.

 

-tks grant

[John McPherson]

Ask Paul Garrett, resident blacksmith at JC Campbell Folk School where they get the pallets of bagged coal that they use.

[Grant]

Thanks John

I'll give Paul a call. -grant