Sydney mint half sov

Found this a few weeks ago

And some other stuff

11 Likes

Those dustbins will get @Lammerlaw rather excited.

1 Like

Hell -Au that’s got to be the nicest hauls I’ve seen lately.
Just love it. Sovereign $3000+ for starters. What is the 1863 token?
Envioussssssssssssssss

2 Likes

Thanks mate! The token is a h.ashton haberdashery token

3 Likes

That’s a super sick find - well done!

1 Like

Fantastic.
In the tide or…?

What calibre are the dust bin bullets. They are a sure fire indication that someone in the days long past was shooting an Adams or similar percussion revolver.
This conjures up all sorts of images in ones head…holding off charging hoards of Maoris during the Maori Wars at one extreme down to trying to shoot flies off the wall in the shithouse hecause your bored and having ADHD, which hadnt been discovered then, you are trying to keep yourself amused while waiting for nature to run its course.
Come to think of it my thunderbox up in the hills on my property has been salivated full of lead but that was to improve the air conditioning.

1 Like

Took you long enough to pick up the scent of those dustbins Lammerlaw :laughing: I never knew what they were until you ID’d my one a couple of years ago (turned out it was just the one at that spot).

And waaay off topic…

Heh, my ex-supervisor told me a lovely tale of how he was put on a fizzer when he was stationed on Motutapu during the war.
As you say, in the absence of invading Japs, boredom set in.
Idle hands do the Devils work, and with judicously scattered bread and an overly lowered 6inch(?) barrel several seagulls effectively vapourised… I can’t recall, but assume it was a blank shell.
With the help of a sympathetic senior officer, the crew escaped the Court Martial on a charge of “Unsporting Conduct” with a few weeks of Fatty Goos.
A real character, I only wish I was into whiskey then - would have got so much more out of him.

I think there must have been a fair few stories about those days. Just a while ago Dad said they were around at a lake, Lake Ferry most likely, near Wellington in either 1942 or 1943 and he and his cobber saw a swan so decided to skittle it - with a Bren LMG. It took them 100 rounds of ammo before they finally got it.

As originally designed, the Model 1851 double action percussion revolvers of Robert Adams had no provision for a loading lever. This meant that tools and accessories had to be carried to load the percussion revolver, which could include a powder flask, loose balls, and a loading rod, simply to charge the cylinder chambers. Adams revolvers would not include an integral loading lever until the advent of the Model 1854 Beaumont Adams Revolver. In an attempt to simplify the process and to make it easier to carry spare ammunition with the gun, Robert Adams developed as semi self-contained cartridge that became known as the “dustbin” cartridge, due to its resemblance to a home rubbish container. The dustbin cartridge included a small copper cylinder that contained the pre-measured powder charge, along with an appropriately sized round ball. The Adams ammunition system cast both the round and elongated balls with a teat at the base of the bullet that was used to secure Adams’ patented fiber wad. The dustbin container had a “lid” at the rear, which was removed when it was loaded into the cylinder chamber, leaving only a thin tissue covering over the powder charge. This was sufficient to keep the powder in the container but could be easily penetrated by the flash from the percussion cap. The round ball with attached wad was then then loaded into the chamber with thumb pressure. When the revolver was fired, the “dustbin” was expelled from the chamber along with the bullet and wadding.

The dustbin cartridges were produced for both Adams revolving handguns and his revolving rifles. Based upon the examples illustrated in Chamberlain & Taylerson’s seminal book Adams’ Revolvers, the cartridges were either unmarked or in the case of the ones produced by Eley Brothers of London, the dustbin’s lid was marked with the Eley maker’s mark. Although not intended to function this way, the cartridge was essentially reloadable. If a fired dustbin was recovered, it could be refilled with powder and used again; either as a way to add a measured powder charge to the cylinder without using the bin itself a second time or by reusing the dustbin without the paper covering at the rear.

This is typical of the old Cap and Ball pistols the Dustbin cartridges were used in. This is the Adams Model 1851 revolver they were specifically designed for.

1 Like

Most of my enfields, musket balls and dustbins were all from near old pa’s just to put that into context