Stone Ball for comments

[fernando]

Yes, provenance is the basics with these things; providing such (provenance) is not fabricated. Anyone can tell you that the specimen was brought out by a diver when collecting stuff from a wreck ... or the like.
The ball posted, with its circa 4" diameter, should weigh about, say, 3 pounds and, if it were an artillery item, would fit in a XIV-XVI century small bombard, or a falcon. I guess too small for catapults, though... like those in Sant'Angelo.
Also i realize that, their construction being too regular, doesn't help supporting their genuinity .

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[TheCollector]

Thanks for the replies , the back story is that it was found by myself in storage after my mother's passing , anyone else in the family who may have known about it has also passed away some years ago , ive collected militaria for 35 yrs and this definitely caught my attention when I seen it .

[TheCollector]

Originally Posted by fernando

Yes, provenance is the basics with these things; providing such (provenance) is not fabricated. Anyone can tell you that the specimen was brought out by a diver when collecting stuff from a wreck ... or the like.
The ball posted, with its circa 4" diameter, should weigh about, say, 3 pounds and, if it were an artillery item, would fit in a XIV-XVI century small bombard, or a falcon. I guess too small for catapults, though... like those in Sant'Angelo.
Also i realize that, their construction being too regular, doesn't help supporting their genuinity .

.

Thanks , great information indeed , one concern I had is that it might be a Mill ball , but I think with those the uniform wear is quite different from the hand tooling marks seen on my ball .

It's located in Australia, I know that a few family members did travel the world a few times , but that's pure speculation if it originated overseas

[fernando]

Mill (grinding) balls are iron. That's what i feared when i gathered by iron ammo.

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[kronckew]

Old style windmill water pumps used in remote prairie or outback locations for livestock, etc, generally had a speed governor that uses heavy iron balls as part of the mechanism. Some get sold as cannon balls.

[fernando]

Those could be easily excluded by the initiated, as they leave visible marks of their suspension rings.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by fernando

Mill (grinding) balls are iron. That's what i feared when i gathered by iron ammo.

I recently found these in a friend's yard. I remembered reading a thread about items that could be mis marketed as cannon balls. I live in an area that had many precious metal ore mines at one time. I thought a picture might be appreciated. The measurements are in inches, my apologies to my metric friends. Also attached is a short reference from everyone's favorite source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_mill