Odd ball not sure if fur trade

Older The Better · Jul 27, 2026

I have a trade spot that hasn’t yielded any definitive modern items outside of shot shells and cartridges. It’s produced pretty text book trade stuff, metal arrowheads, lightning bolt awls, flintlock gun hardware, brass flat buttons, white clay pipe fragments. I’ve basically exhausted the area with the detector so I switched to sifting for non metal targets. I chose a spot that had been spitting out a hand full of stone tools. Before I got pushed out by rain I found what remains of a hafted drill, a few days later I came back to finish that same small hole, maybe roughly 16” round.. I found this vessel 6-8” down… it seems very out of character for the site. Outside of the white clay pipes this is the only ceramic. I was able to put it together… and it looks like a small vessel my mind keeps going to a small vase, but if you look the little projection at the end looks like it had a hollow path that was finished with the smooth glaze. I’ve been trying to figure it out and I keep coming back to German made porcelain pipes that are possible for trade items but not common. Even though that’s where my evidence keeps pointing me when I just look at it I have a hard time believing it… has anyone found anything similar? Any opinions? It’s a spot far from any buildings or modern activity so it would be an odd spot for a small modern vase to appear but I guess not impossible

Here’s a couple examples of what it could be.

And here’s the hafted drill same hole at roughly same depth the picture doesn’t show well but it has been worked inward above the notches and the break is a fairly narrow section at the top.

releventchair · Jul 27, 2026

I think you're on to what it is.

Congrats!
Quite the site.

Older The Better · Jul 28, 2026

Appreciate it, starting to come around to the Id the evidence points to haha, I’m still just a bit weary that I’ll get excited it’s a legit fur trade artifact only to find out it’s like some basic item from 1960.