Ha ha !!! RC u do make me laugh, and i always adore ur whimsical posts on our Todays Finds!!! Xx
Do you think that lead configuration was a musket ball in the making? 🤔 xx
My percentage of right to wrong guesses makes it risky to comment on that lead/leadish marriage.
Starting with a crude roundball mold (mould or moulde maybe in England) of soft stone or cuttlefish bone or whatever locals or the regional area used in a given era (psheeeww) ...
We can expect a seam of "flash" /a thin fin of lead around a crude or inaccurate worn or damaged molds edges.
In better molds we can see a line there but no big deal.
Where lead enters the mold (we or at least I can call it a gate) it is good to pour generously at the end to raise the lead there the most as a high point. To avoid an air cavity or short shot (not enough material to fill the mold. And , because there are no other gates to allow air to escape , we can give an air bubble a last chance to escape.
So now we have a area of sprue sticking up from our roundball where the gate was after we open our mold. It may have above the usually round entrance to the mold we poured through a now flat tiny lake shape of hardened cooled lead atop that rounder sprue.
Many molds currently in use by shooters and hobbyists have very short sprue areas.
A mold needs to be pre heated and the first castings in even good molds can be too cool and wrinkles develop ect..
A simple mold and poor options of materials we can't expect a good product from. But our gate is the entry to the mold and short because of efficiency first , but secondly we don't want to be cooling our lead in an entrance route until the pour is finished.
(Heat rises and a shallow gate takes advantage of that.)
The sprue is then trimmed to leave the slightest "outsie" of a navel and all is well.
Betwixt two plates of steel or very straight material they can be rolled till very round also. Lets not get crazy though. Loading with the sprue up or down hints of best performance against barrel walls. And besides , if round is the shapes goal , then roundish is good.
To cast the pour too short we would leave a void or air bubble atop. Not the roundish or consistent weight we desire or potential performance in flight consistency.
I have enough trouble in person let alone pictures but your ball with what looks like a plump curved nail behind it do not look molded together.
Rather corroded ; or heated from a fire and very lightly fused.
I've seen lead pieces I use grow a whiteish patina when stored touching for a couple(?) years..
How well lead is fluxed and skimmed and how clean it was prior plus our mold....
Multiplied by a century or more in the ground (some fertilizers corrode, maybe sheep urine does . a nitrate thing. Not unlike an ingredient in blackpowder, Which if gotten burned and the residue touches metal , it corrodes too..
Roundball defects in the casting process don't (to my knowledge) leave such a result as yours.
And how to make a mold to match your piece (even a one time use of the right sand and binder/binding agent) mold using your sample as a pattern......Would be a challenge back when your piece(s?) was new.
We can melt lead easy enough. Craft and art and applied science is another matter.
But we can collect lead.
Same with buttons.
If your piece is more than one piece how did they end up together? By chance? Design?
We can wrap a few buttons or lead bits in a rag to carry. Or put down. Or store. Or lose.
A pocket can be attached or portable.
Single ladies could display thier talent by embordering on them. Married ladies wore them inside thier aprons.
Mens wallets could be a bag shaped piece of soft hide simply draped over a belt or sash. More secure than you might imagine till you try it.
Too at least here way back a pouch could be carried over a shoulder ect. with a slit to get through. An early ditty bag or something.
But high art meant multiple little bags inside a bag. Or pocket perhaps.
Would we carry lead with buttons?
We sit at the fire ready to melt lead lets set to it. Not go hunting through our pockets bags ect, for bits of salvaged lead over time.
Or if we are bartering with it or selling it . Ere tis !
A big mayhaps , your pieces rested together long. A cautionary tale for himself!
A single gals pocket of olde.
I've seen them in modern times .
One on a young young gal I think her folks wanted to marry off quite young camped next to us at a shoot. (Her needlework was indeed fine.)
But they emulated long ago personas too. And were literally hungry.
(Yes I gave them some food.)