Yet another awesome piece, Michael. Thanks for posting it. I had a question...
In your experience, have you ever seen a piece of barshot of the type with disc ends that had a round bar vs the square bar commonly seen? Kind of like a barbell? From my research, it seems that the French favored the kinds with the disc-like ends (think 'hockey-puck') vs the full round (American/Brit) and half round shot ends (Brit). Your thoughts? Also, any indication that factories that made dumbells in the mid-late 19th centuries also produced these? There's a Civil War site that has a small listing of round barshot for sale that are pretty much identical to barbells. They show some age and have black primer like naval items, but then again, most of the weights of this period appear as such, so...?
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