There are five sizes of Sawyer shell in the books, the 3.67in field one typical of those recovered at Port Hudson shown on the right, a couple super rare 3in oddballs, 5in and 5.86in ones recovered from Mobile and other areas down there (1 of those is in the background here and the other is out of the picture). Finally there is the 4.2in -- the one missing its lead coating in the front. In Bell's book he notes no documented battlefield usage and a rarity of 8, but then he writes that a mere 250 shells were ordered for one gun by the Union Army. Jack Melton told me he only knows of two others, 1 at West Point museum and another in a museum I cannot recall at present.
I was fortunate enough to acquire this from a forum member after it walked into the NVRHA show. All the pieces save the lead coating and the fuse anvil cap are present. I don't think any of us knew how uncommon a projectile we had until I happened to hand it off to Col. Biemick to haul for me up to Mansfield and somewhere along the way he gave it a closer inspection. I guess I won't be knocking that anvil post out for my fuse collection now.
