Looks like a shotgun shell butt, but then again.......

[DMN]

I found this a few weeks ago. Looks like a shotgun shell butt, except it has a little post coming off one side of the casing. The metal post piece is ~1/4" long. The casing itself has the number '16' on the end, nothing else. The casing is about 3/4" wide. Sorry the pics are a little dim.

Does anyone know what it could be?

 

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[creskol]

That is what they call a pin fire 16 gauge .. It's old ! Nice find

Here is one for sale at Sgt. Rikers Trading Post

 

[Tony in SC]

Yep, Looks a pinfire. Good find, those are rare . Tony

 

[watercolor]

VERY coo!!

Out of over 1,000 shotgun shell brass heads I've dug, I've only found ONE pinfire.

Excellent find!

 

[DMN]

Wow! That was fast! Do you have a guestimate on the age? Pre or post CW? And how does it work? Seems pretty strange.

And most of all, Thank You to all of you in helping me ID this.

 

[Tony in SC]

Wow! That was fast! Do you have a guestimate on the age? Pre or post CW? And how does it work? Seems pretty strange.

And most of all, Thank You to all of you in helping me ID this.

A little of both. Pin fire was developed in France around the start of the Civil War??, but disappeared with the invention of centerfire. Tony

 

[DMN]

Tony, thank you. I found info in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinfire
Looks like it was probably no later than 1880. I like that! I am going to have to pay more attention to the area I have been searching.

I see nothing else to ID the casing. I have only cleaned the base and part of the sides. No lettering on it so I guess I'll never know the manufacturer. But I am stoked about the find. It is cool!

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Nice pinfire DMN. Good ID creskol. They also made pinfire cartridges.

If you feel this is solved,

Go back to your original post,

Click on Modify,

Click on Message icon down arrow,

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[steif]

The first pinfire was granted in 1835 to Lefaucheux. they were not very well accepted at the time, but by the mid 1840's were in very wide use.
as far as the 16 ga pinfire you have there, they date from the 1850's and later... Sears still had them for sale in their catalogs in the mid teens. in some areas, old hardware stores had them for sale in the 50's!! I remember my dad telling me about a hardware store local that had a basket full of them for 5 cents each in the early 50's.

 

[DMN]

This casing was found in an area where there was an old house, certainly 19th century, but it's actual age is unknown to me. I need to get more information from the town. I did find the dump for it and there's quite a bit of old debris. Sooooo, my work is cut out on a few fronts.

Once again, thank you all for your responses. I now know a lot more about something I didn't know existed about 12 hours ago! Treasure Net people have a massive depth of collective knowledge and I'm glad I was able to tap into a small corner of it.

BTW, I cleaned the rest of the casing and there is nothing other than a mark on the headstamp indicating, I believe, where the location of the pin was located. No other writing is visible .

Thanks all again.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

The first pinfire was granted in 1835 to Lefaucheux. they were not very well accepted at the time, but by the mid 1840's were in very wide use.
as far as the 16 ga pinfire you have there, they date from the 1850's and later... Sears still had them for sale in their catalogs in the mid teens. in some areas, old hardware stores had them for sale in the 50's!! I remember my dad telling me about a hardware store local that had a basket full of them for 5 cents each in the early 50's.

1909 Sears Roebuck and Co. Chicago, Ill. supply house.