Item Number: A01675

Item Title: Good Uncleaned Wood Adapter 12 Pounder

Price: $225

Shipping: Not included

Provenance: CS

Type: Cannon Ball

Size: 12 Pounder (4.62 Inch Caliber)

Sabot: Wood Cup (Missing)

Fuse: Wood Adapter (Missing)

Book:
Dickey and George (1993 Edition) Page 30B
Melton and Pawl (Paperback Editon) Page 30 A-6

Location Recovered: Unknown

Description:This ball doesn't have any provenance on it but most of the shells in this collection I purchased that did have provenance came from Petersburg or Cold Harbor. There was another ball like this from Petersburg so there is some reasonable chance this one was also from Petersburg. But there is no verbal or recorded provenance to back that up.

This is a 12 pounder ball that used a wood adapter to hold the paper time fuse. The US government had standardized on the Bormann fuse before the war so other than US mortar balls, which are very rare, the north didn't used wood adapter balls for field caliber. The mortars and bigger caliber shells needed longer burning times than the standard Bormann could offer. So it is highly probable this ball is Confederate which used lots of 12-lber Cannon Balls with wood adapters for the paper time fuse.

The iron is very good on this other than 3 small shallow divots as seen in the pics. It has a nice dark patina. I think the shell has not been run through electrolysis but was likely hand cleaned. It has a very nice pleasing patina.

Shell is inert, clean and maybe very lightly coated (hard to tell for sure).