1862 Civil War Parrot/Read Fuse Adapter and Shellburst

{Sentinel} · Sep 18, 2009

Diggers, how's it going? :icon_salut:

A couple of days ago I posted my civil war finds and had some iron pieces in the photo. Well, I was fairly sure that they were all shell bursts but once I started cleaning, I found a nice little surprise. I had one piece that looked sort of round but thought that it might have been a large octagonal nut and once I ran it through the electrolysis cycle, that the rust would come off and that's what I would find.......but to my surprise, :icon_sunny:

no sharp edges appeared.....it stayed round... and then on further cleaning I started to see the fuse holes coming through. Those 3 beautiful round holes that tell you: I'm a fuse adapter. :icon_thumleft:

Its a nice most likely 1862 Parrot/Read Fuse adapter and next to it is a nice piece of a 12 pounder. Nice thing about this piece is its the thread end and you can see the threads still where the Bormann fuse would have once sat.

PHOTO OF FIRST OUT OF GROUND. THE ONE AT BOTTOM IS THE FUSE ADAPTER, THE ONE AT RIGHT IS THE 12 POUNDER SHRAPNEL. THE ONE AT LEFT IS ALSO SHRAPNEL BUT IS THUS UNCLEANED:

PHOTO AFTER CLEANING (not all the way done):
(NOT PICTURED, THE THIRD CHUNK, I HAVEN'T WORKED ON YET)

Note: Part of the shell is still attached to the fuse, this accounts for the asymmetry of the fuse adapter. This most likely came from a shell that was fired and DID explode.

Heres the shell it would have went to. This is a Read/Parrot and this one has been cut in half to reveal the insides. The fuse adapter would've fit right at the top in the nose of the shell. This particular one was using a wood fuse

Some more photos of the fuse throughout different stages of cleaning...

THE FLIP SIDE OF THE FUSE

Johnny Ringo Silver · Sep 18, 2009

Re: 1862 Parrot/Read Fuse Adapter and Shellburst

it was hiding inside there pretty good wasnt it! Well done on the nice find.

{Sentinel} · Sep 18, 2009

Re: 1862 Parrot/Read Fuse Adapter and Shellburst

Johnny Ringo Silver said:
it was hiding inside there pretty good wasnt it! Well done on the nice find.

Yes it was.

allen · Sep 18, 2009

that is an awesome looking relic !!

{Sentinel} · Sep 19, 2009

allen said:
that is an awesome looking relic !!

Thanks Allen. Alot of times these iron signals are overlooked and this just goes to show that sometimes its worth digging them...

ModernMiner · Sep 19, 2009

Nice job on the iron electrolysis Josh. A diamond in the rough indeed. A lot of folks would have tossed it thinking it was just junk.
Thanks for the post,
MM

{Sentinel} · Sep 19, 2009

ModernMiner said:
Nice job on the iron electrolysis Josh. A diamond in the rough indeed. A lot of folks would have tossed it thinking it was just junk.
Thanks for the post,
MM

Yep, you're right, and that is the travesty of it...these bad boys aren't found very often......and sometimes when they are....like you said, people don't know what they have, and toss it..........I know this spot and most iron signals mean something good, therefore I usually dont throw any of the iron away until after Ive cleaned it and have made sure it isnt something worthy...