Bullet and Shell Civil War Projectiles Forum

Author Topic: Where are the Danner shells today?  (Read 3209 times)


emike123

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Re: Where are the Danner shells today?
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2015, 04:43:30 PM »
Somebody paid a ton of money for that group.  Here are a couple things I have been told about these shells.

1)  There was not one set, but rather a cupboard full of them -- I know you have one of the cards showing that and two of them are shown further down the link to this auction:

http://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-2116-danner-collection-of-artillery-projectiles-bases-and-fragments-70018/

I was told that as these sold from the shelves, they were backfilled with others and the people tried to replace them with similar shells because so many people had bought the appropriately named "cabinet" cards for one reason.  Therefore there is not just one shell of each #, but many.  Posted below is the nose of a Schenkl frag I picked up that is different from shell #34 in the pictures linked here.  There was no base with my #34 frag and it came out of Paul Hricz's old collection after he passed away.


2)  I was told at the time of this auction that one fellow had mixed in some reproductions of these.  Apparently his wife is an artist and is very good at making realistic looking bases in particular.  That might be why the bases are not exactly matched to the number of shells.  A year ago, a dealer had one of these for sale and he thought that the story made sense and he had himself been taken in on the shell he had.  I am surprised noone bought it to put on ebay or at auction because he dropped the price to the value of the underlying shell and it sat on his table the entire Richmond Show.

I cannot recall the name of the guy folks talk about as possibly having faked these shells.  He is not someone I  know, and it is probably best for me that I have forgotten his name.  If I knew it and knew him, I would ask him about this as I did Michael Adamson who (had some reproductions cast and aged) and was quite candid in telling me he had made up a lot of stuff as was Robert McDaniel on the dreaded topic of the "painted bullets" and who commissioned his artwork at $10per.

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I am not sure this is where you wanted this post to go, Scott, so I can move my comments elsewhere if you prefer.


Lamar

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Re: Where are the Danner shells today?
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2015, 11:07:56 AM »
Doesn't the stand of grape supposedly recovered from "Round Top" cast additional doubt over this collection?

Jim T

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Re: Where are the Danner shells today?
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2015, 03:18:48 PM »
As far as I've always heard, Danner was in the relic business and made many, many of these.  There definitely is not just the one set pictured.

scottfromgeorgia

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Re: Where are the Danner shells today?
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2015, 03:49:00 PM »
Well, you folks just popped one of my last bubbles.

WC Smith

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Re: Where are the Danner shells today?
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2015, 09:10:56 AM »
Not sure where these are today but the shells from this sale were not the only ones in private hands. Many are scattered about. I have one in my collection. It is a 3.5 Inch Blakely (Britten) with the Danner number 11 on it. The wood base block says on one side "CULPS HILL" and the other side "CAVALRY FIELD".