7/12/19 Report - Carved Lead Soldier Art: One Found Example. Gator Tooth. Tropical Storm in Gulf.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Lead Mystery Item That I Believe Has Been Identified.

In my 6/29/19 post, I showed some items found on Pigeon Island.  Those items included 54th and 76th Regiment of Foot buttons, grapeshot, and some other items, including the one shown above.  When I found those items it was early in my metal detecting days and I knew very little about items of the Revolutionary War era.  For a long time I believed the above item was a finial.  There is a hole in one end (left end).  I asked the readers of this blog what they thought, and one person said it was soldier art - a carved cannon.

I recently saw the item when I had some others old finds out.  They were all from the same 1787 battle site that I described in my 6/29 post.

I decided to carefully remove some of the heavy brown patina to take a better look at the item.  Then I took a look at it using magnification.  And since I thought it seemed to have about the same volume as a lead musket ball that I also found at the same site, I weighed both the item and the musket ball.

First, after looking at the newly semi-cleaned item under magnification, I thought I could see how it some of the marks on the item were made with a sharp point.  (See photo below.)

Close-up View of Part of the Same Item.

There are several small oblong marks in a line above and left of center that I think you can easily see.  They definitely seem to be hand-made or carved like many of the other marks on the item.

After inspecting other carved lead bullets that I found online and comparing the tooling on those items with this item, I found the marks to be very similar.

The weight of the musket ball found very near this lead item is 31 grams.  The weight of this item is 27 grams.  That seems pretty close to me.  Some of the difference could be because of material being lost during carving.

The next thing I did is compare the item with photos of cannons actually on the island.

Muzzle End of Cannon Located on Pigeon Island.

The similarity is remarkable - especially the muzzle end.

Muzzle End of Carved Item.

The pennies in the photo didn't make the best background, but I needed something to hold the muzzle end up at an slight angle while I took the photo.

By the way, the lead item was found within a few feet of where a cannon would have been.

I noticed two obvious differences between the lead item and the real cannon.  One is that the lead item is shorter from the muzzle to the base than would be the case if it was created to scale.  The second is that the lead item has a lot more decorative lines and marks.

Putting it all together, I now, rightly or wrongly, strongly believe that the lead item is indeed soldier art.  It also seems to me that a single musket ball might have been used because of the weight of the item, which closely matches that of a musket ball found near where the item was found.  I also think that the soldier might have started at the muzzle end, which is most realistic, and ran short on material, but that is mere speculation.

I wondered about the deep groves at the base end of the cannon.  They are unrealistic, compared to the rest of the item, and could be an attempt to either save material, or part of an effort to stretch the item.

I don't know how the ball, if that is what was used was lengthened.  I'm thinking that maybe it was rolled out first, like dough,  Maybe heated.

One thing you can't see in the photos is indentations on each side of the cannon about two thirds of the way towards the base that could have been for mounting.

While researching this, I noticed that there is an active community of those who collect carved Civil War bullets.  Here is one link where you can see some of those.

https://relicrecord.com/blog/carved-civil-war-bullets/

Here is another.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/304389753070719/

The above item seems to be from an earlier era than the Civil War and also seems to be a bit more ambitious than most of the carved bullets that I've seen so far.  Most of those are chess pieces, have initials carved on them or something fairly simple like that.

I can see why carved bullets appeal to collectors.  There aren't tons of them, and they show the unique artistic expression of an individual.

Thanks to whoever originally suggested that the item was soldier art.  I now think they that is correct.

What do you think?

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I posted this tooth for ID from Gaylen C. a few days ago.

Find and Photo by Gaylen C.

This has been identified as an alligator tooth.  Nice one.

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I just received photos of some new 1715 Fleet finds.  I'll post those for you tomorrow.


It is the time of year to start keeping a close watch on the tropical weather.  These things come and go quickly, and you don't want to miss some prime hunting when the treasure window opens.

Tropical Storm Barry is in the Gulf and headed towards Louisiana or Texas, so shouldn't affect us much.

There is another system in the Atlantic to watch, but it is too far away to guess what it will do.

Tropical Storm Barry.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

On the Treasure Coast the predictions are for another week or so of small surf.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net