Watch List notes:

Bronze cannon breech-block, ex-Real Eight, ex-Sotheby-Parke-Bernet (1973), plated in Pieces of Eight (Wagner, 1966), very rare and important. 24.3 lbs., 8-1/4" tall x 3" diameter at top. Typically very solid and heavy, brassy-bronze in color with smooth surfaces and crusty green residue inside, inscribed on darker side with IM / BS and with cross-hatched triangle below touch-hole, 4" rectangular handle on side and small lip on bottom, made to be pre-packed with powder and ball and then simply inserted into the breech of a cannon for quick firing, this example extremely important as reportedly one of only four found on the 1715 Fleet (two of which are in the State of Florida museum), probably all of them for use with the single breech-loading cannon found in 2010 (famously stuffed with gold cobs), also particularly well pedigreed, pictured and described in both the most famous book about the 1715 Fleet (Kip Wagner's Pieces of Eight) and one of the most famous early auctions of Real Eight Co. 1715-Fleet artifacts. (Special shipping required.) From the 1715 Fleet, plated on photo-pages opposite pages 80 and 192 of Pieces of Eight (1966), by Kip Wagner, and on page 131 of the Treasure of the Spanish Main auction (Sotheby Parke, Bernet, Los Angeles, June 1973), lot #651, with original lot-sticker, and with Real Eight Co. certificate signed by John P. Jones.
($6,000-$12,000)