Civil War.69 caliber ball dug at Gettysburg, from the Shield’s Gettysburg Museum

This is another nice piece being offered, it is a .69 caliber ball that was dug at Gettysburg and part of the Gettysburg Shield’s Museum collection. The standard ammunition since the Revolutionary war, the roundball designed for the smoothbore musket was a staple amongst Union and Confederate soldiers on the field of battle.

In 1918, Ott Shields opened a private museum that featured the “Shields Collection” - one of the few documented Gettysburg collections, obtained by local families (Rosensteel, Danner; Wert, Ziegler, etc.). The museum stood along Route 30 just west of downtown Gettysburg and housed a large collection of artifacts related to the battle (see pictures).

The Shields Museum closed in the 1980s and the collection was sold at auction on November 16, 1985. Offering over 600 lots “comprised mostly of Gettysburg battlefield pick-up relics,” the auction attracted several hundred Civil War collectors, dealers, and museum buyers.