Is using metal from meteors unusual in the past?
Unless you count Sudbury it's still uncommon now!
Mostly because carbonaceous chondrites are much more common. :^)
Finding them was kind of a trick through. Not many of those that hit the earth are metal and stay together enough to be of use. The famous crater in Arizona is probably what happened when they were too large, it just vaporized rather then being a large lump of metal.
So it would need to be made of the right stuff, be the right size and come down where people could see it land, understand what it was and go find it.
It happened, obviously. But rarely.