Be very careful to know the laws before you order any mercury from anywhere. If it has to come from a foreign nation to the USA it will likely never make it. Mercury is considered a dangerous poisonous element. Even though we used to get little blobs of it from the dentist just 40 years ago, that would never happen today. If a thermometer dropped in a school today, the entire school would be evacuated and a Hazmat (hazardous material) unit would come in dressed in space suits with masks and air tanks and the whole deal. It's ridiculous, but people are being (dramatically) a lot safer than we used to be. Sometimes I think we are way over-regulating things, but that's what they do.
I was doing a gold amalgamation demonstration at a gold prospectors club meeting that took place in a college. About 20 minutes into the presentation 2 cops and 3 firemen came into the room. They had been called by someone who said a dangerous substance was being used in the meeting room. Two firemen put the little bottle of mercury and the gold pan I was using into a box with walls about 4 inches thick, and then the two of them slowly carried it out as if it was nitro glycerine. The news showed up and as they came out of the building there was a crowd gathering. The firemen made it look as if though the entire school was about to blow up as they carried the box over to and put it in the big Hazmat truck. Then the news lady interviewed the firemen who said that a pound of mercury could leave the building in such a dangerous state that it might never be used again and that it was a good thing they got there before a terrible deadly accident had occurred. What a crock! But that's what we've allowed ourselves to become. We hide in fear from things that were no more dangerous than a rose thorn just a few years earlier. I was not arrested and I got my mercury back after the big news show.
Anyway when I have purchased mercury for use with gold dust amalgamation it was sold to me in lots of 1 pound. That would be in a bottle about the size of a McCormicks vanilla extract bottle. They are the little brown bottles that hold one ounce. That size in mercury is one pound. I don't know what you need mercury for, but if it's for gold amalgamation on a hobby basis, then you don't need much more than a teaspoon of it. You can re-use it for eternity after you squeeze it out from the amalgamation ball. So don't overbuy and end up with a bunch that you'll never use. Eventually we who possess mercury will be outlaws because of how insane we are getting over safety issues. It takes a long time of handling mercury to absorb enough of it to be poisoned. Mercury poisoning was one of the main causes of death in the gold rush days. That was because before they knew about the danger, prospectors were burning off the ball of gold amalgam after they amalgamated and then squeezed out the mercury. They would put a gold pan on top of the potbelly stove and then get it cherry red hot and drop the amalgam ball into the pan. The vapor that came off the ball was mercury gas and it would drop the prospectors where they stood. Once that was figured out, prospectors the took necessary precautions.
Look in the yellow pages for chemical supply houses to buy mercury. You might be able to get some from either the store in town that sells gold panning equipment, or from other local prospectors. Old thermometers, barometers, and blood pressure taking units (sphygmomanometers) contain mercury and carefully taken apart and broken can yield all you would need for hobby level amalgamation.
