Some CW, Colonial, and other finds - need some input from the Cannonball Guy

[Steve in PA]

This weekend my brother (who is visiting from Colorado) and I set off to do some Civil War relic hunting in Maryland and West Virginia. On the way I decided to stop at a farm in Pennsylvania where I had found a 1797 Draped Bust dime and a Spanish silver half real, along with an 1840 Harrison Campaign token and assorted late 18th / early 19th century buttons. I had only been on this place twice before the farmer decided he wasn't comfortable with me digging in his pasture. I figured I would check periodically to see if he passed on to the big pasture in the sky, because his wife was fine with me digging there. When we pulled up Saturday, a new family was in the farm house and the young kid who answered the door said they had bought the farm, and gave permission to hunt in the pasture. We were able to pull out 5 buttons, a piece of spur, large iron buckle and most of a large iron trivet before an irate lady showed up and kicked us out. Apparently the original family still owns the farm and the new family only bought the house. Bummer! Here is our finds for an hour there.


We spent the rest of that day and all of Sunday hunting in Washington County Maryland and Jefferson County West Virginia. Here are our CW finds for that part of the trip.


I found 8 bullets and my brother found two, including a Starr carbine, which you don't see that often on CW sites east of the Mississippi. A couple odd finds came out of the soybean field (a large skirmish site) where we we digging the bullets. I found all three pieces to this locket in the same hole. Still needs cleaned to bring out the gold plating better.



I found a little piece of sheet brass that looked like it had a man bowling on it. My brother also found a piece of sheet brass that, when I cleaned it, I could see a man with a bat. I believe these are cricket players or early baseball players. Too bad we only found pieces instead of the whole thing.


Here is everything cleaned up a little. Nothing really great, but at least we tried.


Finally, the question for the Cannonball Guy...
This ball is 2.35" diameter and weighs 1.875 pounds. It was found two or three miles north of the Antietam battle field. It was found in the front yard of a period house where I found a cartridge box plate last year, and the front of the house (facing the battle field) has a hole in it where a projectile used to be stuck, but was stolen. The only thing that matches up in the shot charts is a ball from a stand of grape for an 18 pounder gun. But from what I understand, grape was obsolete by the civil war, replaced by canister. So what do we have here?

 

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[digging440yrs]

Looks like a great time

 

[relic nut]

Looks write to me, but I'm no expert. Nice digs

 

[metalev4]

Nice digs Steve, the Locket is a cool find. Glad you got out, I am envious.

 

[VOL1266-X]

Some great finds Steve. Those are a lot of relics for hunts in this day & time my friend. WTG, Q.

Cannonball Guy should reply soon!

 

[Steve in PA]

Nice digs Steve, the Locket is a cool find. Glad you got out, I am envious.

Evan, I think the locket is period. What do you think?

 

[Vino]

About time I got some pics from you!!!
Nice finds Steve, it was a bummer you guys got chased away. .

 

[G.A.P.metal]

Steve
Looks like a good day there,i got my fingers crossed for a Cannonball !
Gary

 

[Old Dude]

Sorry about the irate lady...at least you didn't let it ruin your day and you made some good finds to ease the sting.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Again my friend Quindy gave me a heads-up that somebody has requested my analysis for a "maybe-cannonball."

I'm glad to hear you are already aware of the 1861 Ordnance Manual's "Shot Tables" -- which tell the precise diameter and weight of made-in-the-USA/CSA cannonballs, grapeshot balls, and canister-ammo balls. Like grapeshot being almost entirely obsolete for Army use by the time of the civil war, 18-Pounder smoothbore cannons were very nearly obsolete. They were no longer hauled around by the Army for "campaigning in the field." They'd been relegated to forts, for fixed-position (non-moving) defense such as harbor/river defense, and city defense forts. We know the Confederates had at least one 18-Pounder caliber cannon at their Charleston SC harbor defenses and another in their Petersburg Siege defensive lines.

My main point is, there should not be any civil war era 18-Pounder caliber grapeshot balls at army battlefields in Maryland, unless it was at a city's defensive fort. You'll need to research the spot where you found that ball and see if there was ever an 18-Pounder cannon there, in the Revolution or War-Of-1812 or civil war. If there wasn't, the ball you found cannot be an 18-Pounder caliber grapeshot ball.

Ebay sellers keep advertising "Gettysburg-dug" iron balls which are the right size to be 42-Pounder grapeshot balls... but there was no 42-Pounder cannon at the battle of Gettysburg. An "ammo dump" is the only scenario where artillery balls are found at a place where no cannon was ever present which could have been shooting that size of ball.

 

[johnnyblaze]

Steve-O good to see you get out brotha..
That cannon ball is a cool find but you know that locket,those early personal items are a killer find
Nice variety.

~Blaze~

 

[Scrappy]

Oh yeah, that's the good stuff! That spur is AWESOME and something on my list. Everything else...same thing, Awesome!! Wow Steve great hunt bud.

Steve

 

[joeyfresh]

Man Steve, those are some great relics. Cannoballguy's response makes it very intriguing as to why and what you have. How would you find out what kind and size cannon they had there? That would drive me crazy not to know. Do they know what size projectile hit the house?

 

[sutphin]

STEVE DANG NICE MIX YOU HAVE THERE ..

 

[CRUSADER]

Pretty sure that 2 piece buckle has a Cricket scene on it. I've seen the bowler batsmen before. Early 1900s I would say. Although not knowing much about early Cricket history, unsure when they started the over hand bowl.

 

[against the wind]

Excellent day of swinging the coil. Those 2 baseball /cricket finds may be more valuable than all your other finds combined. Early baseball memorabilia experts may want to take a look see at those copper sheets.

 

[CRUSADER]

Excellent day of swinging the coil. Those 2 baseball /cricket finds may be more valuable than all your other finds combined. Early baseball memorabilia experts may want to take a look see at those copper sheets.

Yeap, I haven't ruled out baseball because that would make more sense (over there), I'm just drawing on my references of these. To explain a little more these pressed copper sheets that may show no signs of fitting on the reverse where you would expect buckle attachments; were often fix on top of a bigger piece that housed the buckle as we would know it. Of course, it may have fixed to other items as well, so we need an open mind.
OP,
What does the reverse look like?

 

[Steve in PA]

Yeap, I haven't ruled out baseball because that would make more sense (over there), I'm just drawing on my references of these. To explain a little more these pressed copper sheets that may show no signs of fitting on the reverse where you would expect buckle attachments; were often fix on top of a bigger piece that housed the buckle as we would know it. Of course, it may have fixed to other items as well, so we need an open mind.
OP,
What does the reverse look like?

The back side is just the impressed pattern from the die stamp. No attachments or solder marks.

 

[Steve in PA]

Man Steve, those are some great relics. Cannoballguy's response makes it very intriguing as to why and what you have. How would you find out what kind and size cannon they had there? That would drive me crazy not to know. Do they know what size projectile hit the house?

Joey, they only could say it was not a round projectile. Here is the hole the shell made.