Don't know if y'all like to see finds. Some recent Archer finds!

[swest47]

http://www.mytreasurespot.com/main/read.php?3,528715,528766#msg-528766

http://www.mytreasurespot.com/main/read.php?3,528908,528908#msg-528908

Let me know if I've breached some etiquette thing.

[emike123]

No etiquette breach, Scott.  Thanks for posting.  That second one he found is a rare type.  I have 10 different ones and don't yet have that one.  If you see him up in VA, tell him I want it!

Hope all is well.  It was nice seeing you.  Did you get the write up I sent you with the picture of the Double Bridges site?

[scottfromgeorgia]

I don't have that one, either. Also interested. But who can outbid Mike?

[alwion]

not me, I can't even afford the one he has for sale right now:(     

could I please ask questions, since neither looks like my archer
the second one (Mike said rarer) looks to have no grooves, and is just a tapered tail?

Is it my imagination, but the 1st one doesn't look tappered at all, but has grooves. Is it just the picture that makes the tail look all the same diameter?

[emike123]

The one with the grooves is the rarer type.  It was the second one he found.  It would have had a lead ring sabot over the iron grooves, but that was removed, likely during firing

[swest47]

I'll talk to him and see if he's interested and what his price might be.

[Pete George]

Emike wrote:
> The one with the grooves is the rarer type.

  Well, yes, it is a scarce variety, but it is not an ultra-rare type like a Tie-Ring Archer.  It is a 3.3-inch "Shiloh" Long-Sabot Archer which is missing its sabot.  I mention that only because I'm surprised to hear you do not already own one.  By the way, most specimens of that type have been found with the sabot still on them.

Swest47, please ask the digger if he found it in the Shiloh area, or some other area.

Regards,
Pete

[emike123]

Nice catch, Pete.  I do own a nice one with the sabot.  I defer dibs to Scott.



Is the other one a 3.67" "prototype" pattern?  I have one of them in both 3.3 and 3"  In fact a 3" prototype is for sale on the commercial part of this site.

[Pete George]

  The "other one" appears to have a Bolt's pointed nose.  That would exclude it from being a 3.67" Archer, all the currently-known specimens of which are shells, not solids.

  The digger made no mention of its size or weight.  Also, because it is so dirt-encrusted, I cannot be certain about any of its body-details except its general outline/profile.  But, because it seems to have been found near the sabotless 3.3-inch "Shiloh Archer" Bolt, it is probably a 3.3-inch Archer Prototype.

Note: I've modified my original post to correct a major typo - I meant to say "cannot be" but I typed "can."

Regards,
Pete

[emike123]

Right, 3.3" not 3.67".  If it is a 3.3" Prototype Archer bolt, I think they are harder to come by than the Shiloh variety

[CarlS]

Post from Scott (that was causing the troubles with our server, by the way.  Scott, do we need to warn you again about practicing safe computing from wherever you are in the world?)

Sorry, I guess I have one, too. Only mine is not nice and new like Mike's. Mine is previously owned. Someone used mine at Shiloh and the sabot is all lumpy and its got lines running on it. I guess I should try to grind them off.

I guess you win this one, Mike.

Scott

[emike123]

Yours is battlefield used.  I remember when you got it and it was also about 2/3rds the cost of mine.

I know that a couple of these guns were overrun at Shiloh.  I think there were four, two in the Washington Artillery and two in something like Watson's Flying Artillery (also of Louisiana and excuse me if I got the name slightly wrong, but I am running from memory).  I have always wondered if the unfired ones with the sabots were tossed on the ground as part of temporarily losing the tubes.

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Mike,
What makes it a prototype?
John

[emike123]

There is commentary on this in D&G on page 73 and 74.  That style is found at early war sites like Shiloh as Pete queries above.

It is an ineffective design from an aerodynamic perspective.  Later ones are a little better but still sucky.  Thats a technical term, but I am still on semi sabbatical ;-)

[scottfromgeorgia]

I am posting from Atlanta. Sorry about the problems. I could not post of a pic of my previously owned Archer.