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Any ideas? its just under an inch long in all direction? Any ideas?

I think it may be whats left over from making musket balls ?

I have one just like it at home !! :)
I was thinking along the same lines as Mel, but I can't see anything on the web - I will have a look in some books at home tonight.
Deb

Could be a mould branch from making musket balls,
but also it reminds of a piece from an old childs game Dip dap doe i think its called.
you have you throw the x thing into the air and before it falls you have to pick up other items then chatch the x thing in the same hand.

 I Thank the lord for the Sony Playstation 1 2 and 3 lol

Hope ur kids dont throw that in the air :D

I think you may be right there Phil, although I know the game as Jacks, it does look like a game piece does'nt it.... ???

no its defo the waste stems from making musket balls mr cadzy found a few my self  ;)

I have been looking through the Detecting Finds books but can't see anything this shape.
Peter (doc) - what do you think?

I found one of these several years ago, and posted it on UK Detectornet. I was informed that it could be from a game (a bit like bowls or boules I guess) that used wooden balls with a weighted centre made of lead in this shape. There was a link to a site that illustrated it, but I've lost the link and can't remember what the game was called :-[

Of course, it could have been a wind-up and it may be casting waste after all.

Heres a Musket ball mould guys.... Wrong shape unless there were different designed moulds.

wow -- that is a brillaint artefact. well done on finding it.

cheers
alan

Alan I never found that fella ....I wish I had though... That was a pic taken offline  sorry fella.

ooohh - -are you taking orders??  it would be a superb teaching aid!

that is a later one taff if you lot want to disagree with the welsh museum thats up to you lot but i think they know more than you lot  :-\

i found this musket ball with the waste still attached...it looks as if it could have come from that mould.....and not the criss-cross thing....byron

Not me Phil I wouldnt know a Musket mould from Bread mould  :D  ;)

Hi Thelovedoc

Your right about the name Jacks
Ive no idea where i got the name dip dap doe from lol

thats a great diagram ian... ;)..i was always led to believe they were cast individually in a pliers type instrument...that sort of thing.... ;)....byron

They were as well Byron....Probably many different ways of doing them. I've heared of Air Dropped musket balls as well.

I have seen pictures of the pliers type instruments for casting individual musket balls Byron - there must have been the two methods.

Debbie heres a video of the pliers method.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YItX2-O1kmE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YItX2-O1kmE)

thats a brilliant demonstration of single musket balls being made.....i'm sure that different methods evolved as time went on and they became more ingenious......byron

 Yeah  iv'e got several of them in slightly different sizes and thickness,  they are the cast offs from the early moulds,  i did find one with a ball attached in my early days,  iv'e found a couple with lead from the other side which shows  where they were cut from something,  i was demonstrating this in my museum exhibition,
Alan

That's a good video Tafflaff.  It is difficult to imagine how really hard life must have been for the soldiers - having to make their own ammo would have been only one of their daily challenges!

there was another way to,  they'd kmake a few in a double row in a mould,

I have had about 7 of them including 4 from one site in Lower Machen in one day.

I have also heard both theories about then being used to weight a ball and as musket ball holders. I have also heard that they were fired from Bluderbusses! who knows what the answer is - I would be intrigued to find out

Neil

It could be a caltrop (excuse spelling) and may have had nails or sharp pieces of iron inserted into all the stub ends ....used as a weapon to lame horses or foot soldiers. The design enables it to be thrown from horseback or running on foot to disable / delay persuers, as it will always land business end up..

ok mr gadget here is one with one on ive got three of them all in toll one with two on and one with nout on better than that you can have them if you want them i dont tell lies you off all pepole sould know that ill put them in the car so next time we meet you can have them  ;)

no efence taking mate just telling you what mark lodwick came back with  ??? i dont realy know myself  :-\ you can all of them mate i just chuck them in the scrap  ::)  ;)

hi i saw an article in searcher enquiring what they where, i have 2 in the house both 6 sided, a few years back in s ireland i found two from a site where cromwell attacked the fort sailing on to limerick , he fired on the fort from his ships , my mate said that when he was diving 1 of cromwells shipwrecks he found cases of them,with musket balls attached, he thought they where shot from the ships cannon hence me finding two, minus the musket balls probably cut of for the muskets to fire separate, there probably was different ways of making them but these definatly had musket balls, probably militry ammunition, as ive also found them at cromwells battle sight in cowbridge regards john

Thanks for that Paul  and Borderfox,   i was beginging to think i was dreaming  lol,
  couldn't find them on the net,  iv'e even   written to a couple of people that may know more than me, but i haven't had any replies on it,
 Cheers now
  Alan

Not being an expert on military tactics  ??? and various types of munitions  ??? I would hazard a guess that John pughes explaination is definately the most plausible  ;) for a start theres to much wastage for a musket ball moulding I,m sure the method would of been perfected to produce as little wastage as possible making it very efficent are we looking at a type of grape shot  for larger bore /calibre  weapons ???to cause maximum damage to cavalery etc Just got to add Phil  that museums don,nt know it all they like to give us the impression that they do though ;D

  I have thinner ones too for the smaller balls,  iv'e got about 4 different sizes,  they are always found where musket balls are found,
 i think the  moulds may have been made in 2 clay  peices, then fixed together and moulten lead poured into the top,  then break it open to get them out when it cools,

here's a couple of mine for now,  i have got a few more somewhere

Nice post, would be interesting to know if they are just from coastal areas, never seen one before, are they found inland?

Just a question, why have the balls on the end of them if they are cannon shot they would not need the ball shape on the end to do severe damage.

Unless of course some enterprising engineer adapted the moulds to include musket shots at the end. to kill two birds in one stone, once cast the ball shapes on the ends could then be cut off and used .....two jobs in one cast.

Ian, Just an Idea here. But I found a Naval Button on the same farm if you remember. Training exercises maybe?

  I can let you know where you can find loads of the larger balls ( for the  Brown Bess, Circa, 1771 ish, Neopolenic.period) and spurs, in the spring maybe Ian if you want,

O.k   see you at the meeting Ian,  i don't want to make it too public as i want to go back myself sometime,  i found some pre-dec silver there too,

Heres a few of mine - majority of which were found well away from the coast.

The one site I had three off did have a real smattering of musket balls there as well.

One of them the slightly fatter one came from land around Raglan castle and we all know how much action was seen there.

I am going with the musket ball theory and that the cross was fired somehow after.

Neil

Thats what I was leaning towards eventually Neil , though my only problem with that is , every one of those crosses posted up has no damage to them. Surely we'd be seeing some major flattening of at least one of the spikes.......but there again , look how many unflattened musket balls we find  ???

Some nice ones there too Neil,  the larger ones from 1771 ish and the slightly smaller ones from  the English Ciil war period,     1648 ish mate,

 yeah its not often that you'll find them damaged,

Nice to be able to put dates to them Al , I personally think this whole Lead cross debate is fascinating, nice to see the different ideas out there.  ;)

hi, when i said cromwells ships attacked a fort, i meant cromwells army where on board in numbers they sailed on to the river shannon to attack limerick i am not linking these musket ball holders to the navy or the sea, believe it or not, arm,y s did travel in boats remember dd  ??? the area they passed just past tralee, was renowned for wreckers,  on the beach at ballybunnion , their was a wreck full of 200year old wine bottles, they took a jcb down by night and dug up many hundreds, he also dived to one wreck, and found loads of pewter plates a great man and friend who we lost this time last year regards john

Yeah but we know at least some of them had "musket balls"  or whatever they are attatched....ref Coleggwents pics.

Yeah but there is one ball there, that cant be an accident, its obviously there for a reason

yes ive seen a number of these i had a mate
and the musket ball was still connected

Hi guys, thought you may be intereste in a reply I received off Mark Lodwick on this quest..lol.

Hi Rob,
 
I'm not too sure about the casting technology employed. Thinking about it, I agree with the idea that a three-dimensional mould would be more complicated than required. The mould would need to be square and in 4 sections - I am not aware of this type of mould being recovered archaeologically. However, I think that these items are casting residue and I don't believe that they were meant to be fired themselves.
 
I will make some enquiries and let you know.
 
Mark

Good of Mark to look into this , I think we'd all agree.

This is the email I sent Mark Ian. as you can see I didnt take any of the theories as my own, just thought I'd get an Expert outside opinion on the subject. I didnt think the other contributors to the thread would mind.


Hi Mark , sorry to bother you,
 
there is an interesting debate going on at Detecting wales at the moment over the six pronged musket ball moulds. can you shed some light on this for me.
 
Some claim these are the left overs of musket ball moulding, others say no as the mould would be overly and needlesly complex. then theres the theory that the cross shapes were fired from a type of large gun/cannon.
 
As you see from one of the pictures there is a musket ball still attached to the cross of lead. do you think it is at all possible that they killed two birds in one stone and produced a mould that would make musket balls and cannon shot in one go, then snipped the balls off.

hope that dispells any concerns you may have had.

Well Done Rob for asking Mark. I was intending to bring it up at the next SCAN meeting again with him to try and find a definative answer.

Cheers
Neil

Good one Rob - it will be interesting to see what Mark says.  I think I have kept the one I found a while ago - nothing is attached to it though, it is just the 'star' on its own.  I am in the process of sorting out all the bits and bobs accumulated over time into their respective 'ages' - one of those dark night / wet weekend winter tasks!  :D

OK I will leave it to the experts.lol. ;D but with phils post the welsh museum said it was for moulding musket balls i wont be holding my breath for a conclusion. :D ;D ;D ;D