Eight Federal Highway Administration-supplied asphalts, which have established field-performance histories relative to "tender-mix" pavements, were examined by three physiochemical methods. The purpose of the study was to elucidate some fundamental differences between the "nontender" and "tender-mix" asphalts. Heat of immersion measurements and resilient deformation measurements showed reasonable correlations with "tender-mix" pavements, while percent n-hexane asphaltenes and their infrared spectra did not.