EricEC wrote:
> Could you give me examples of stone balls beside cannonballs that could be found at sea (I supposed they would have to be related to sailing, diving or fishing although there's always the possibility of cargo on a merchant ship).
Examples of stone non-artillery balls:
Various sizes of "game balls" (everything from marbles to lawn-game balls).
Ship ballast-balls,
Ornamental/decorative balls (everything from monuments to decorative driveway-border balls)
Crusher balls for milling, used where iron balls are unsuitable due to sparking or rust contamination - such as gunpowder-mill balls and grain-pulverizer balls.
ErickEC also wrote:
> What about the diameter? Were there cannons in the 17th - 19th century with barrels able to
> fit a 75cm circumference ball?
Not on ships. Doing the math... 75cm translates to 9.4-inches. I cannot find documentation of any pre-1750
Navy cannon which fired a projectile larger than 7.1-inches. According to the official HMS Victory website (
HMS Victory - The Shipwreck):
"
Victory 1744 is the only shipwreck ever discovered with 42-pounder cannon, the most powerful and prestigious guns used in naval warfare."
Colonial-era 42-Pounder cannons were 7"-caliber, and the cannonballs for them were specified to be 6.68-inches in diameter.
Doubter In MD wrote:
> is there any way to determine with certainty that it is or isn't a stone cannonball?
> If it is a stone cannonball what is it worth? Just curious.
"Determine with CERTAINTY" is the big issue. The answer is, definitely No. Because there were several kinds of
non-artillery stone balls in the Colonial era, and ships carried them as cargo for the colonial merchants, there's no way to determine with CERTAINTY whether a stone ball from a shipwreck (or elsewhere) is an artillery ball or not... UNLESS there was a cannon on that ship which fired a cannonball EXACTLY the same diameter as the stone ball.
Summary:
As mentioned above, there does not seem to be any Colonial-era navy cannon which fired a ball as large as the one posted by EricEC. Speaking as a longtime Historical Artillery projectile collector (and dealer), I do not want to pay $50 for a stone ball which just as easily MIGHT be a grain-mill pulverizer ball or game ball or ornamental ball. If I'm going to pay good money to put a stone (or iron) ball in my collection, I want CERTAINTY about its identification as an artillery ball. (Please note, Ebay is full of various balls being sold as cannonballs, but in actual fact most of them are Civilian-usage mill-balls -- please don't waste your money there.)
Sidenote:
As Smithbrown and Boatlode said, stone balls were found on the Atocha and Mary Rose shipwrecks. But I haven't been able to find a list of the caliber of those ships' cannons. The only documentation I can find describes them simply as "bronze heavy guns." Also, as we see in the photo of the Mary Rose stone balls posted by EricEC, no size-measurements are given. If anybody here has documentation of those ships' cannon-calibers (bore diameters) and ball diameters, please post a link to the information. Thanks.
and had 4-8 versos.
