A great variation of the quality of hot rolled brass bars of the same composition and of the same manufaeture can be detected by examining the value of the ultimate shearing strain or roughness of the surface of a test piece which it retains after testing. Having carried out tension and torsion test and the examination of inner structure of such materials, the author has ascertained that this variation of quality is in accordance with the temperature at which the bars are presumed to have been rolled. Tensile and torisional strength and the measures of toughness to be obtained by the tension test may fail to furnish any evidence of such variation of quality.