Steel produced prior to World War II is highly sought after, and usually sells for a premium. The reason why may surprise you. It's not due to any perceived higher quality than steel produced later -- not in the ordinary sense, anyway.
The issue is that steel smelted after WWII pretty much all contains tiny amounts of radioactive contamination from above ground nuclear tests, which were common until the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty in 1963.
While the amount of radiation in that steel is extremely low, it's high enough to interfere with some very high precision instrumentation. So manufacturers of some affected equipment want that "old steel" to use instead.
Since the global atmospheric contamination levels associated with those tests has been dropping over the decades, it's a decreasing problem for newly produced steel.
Still, a large find of old steel, like a sunken pre-WWII battleship for example, is still much valued due to these issues.
@lauren For similar reasons, the Bomb Pulse helps spot fake art and artifacts claimed to be from before the mid-20th century, since they'd have this nuclear mark if made after.
@lauren how does the trace contamination end up in modern steel? The ore and coal would've been underground during the atmospheric test era. They do recycle a lot of scrap when smelting new steel, I suppose it gets in that way.
@johnefrancis Scrap would be a factor over time, but I believe the main issue has been contamination from the air during the process. Of course there are secondary effects too, mostly involving the food chain.
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