Question about a cannon

[Zulu]

Hypothetically speaking, say someone you know found a Civil War cannon barrel in a river in Florida.  For fun, say it was buried in the mud and preserved so well that the numbers were still readable.
Would that be finders keepers?
Zulu

[Double D]

Hypothetically speaking, say someone you know found a Civil War cannon barrel in a river in Florida.  For fun, say it was buried in the mud and preserved so well that the numbers were still readable.
Would that be finders keepers?
Zulu

No it would not.   It still belongs to the original owner.  If it's US or CSA military it belongs to the U.S.  Government.  The military will claim it from you and take it away to languish in some warehouse for perpetuity or loan it out to some institute for study.

A good recent example of this is the recent recovery of the U.S.S. Sharks cannons for on the beach in Oregon.  The Navy Claimed them and they are now in College Station being resored.

There might be some reimbursement for recovery cost but thats iffy.

[little seacoast]

Might be a good time to keep your head down, what they don't know about they can't get in a wad about.  Publicity would be contraindicated.

[GGaskill]

And then there is the state law in the state where the piece was recovered.  You would have to investigate that also.  I think Florida takes 25% of the value of any treasure found in their waters.

[rampa room artillery]

sounds like you dug it up in your yard,  wink wink,    thats how most originals that were found in barns are now shooting in the nssa.  if its in a southern state then it belonged to the csa which is not here any more so ownership has been given up.  same as ship wreck cannons in the usa.  finderkeepers.


 rick bryan

[Zulu]

This was all hypothetical.  I just wondered if anyone had any opinions about it.
Zulu

[little seacoast]

Yes, see above!

[Cannon Cocker]

Please keep us posted.  I think we'd all be very interested in specifically what type of gun it was, and it's condition.........................................................hypothetically.

[buzz36]

if it was me i just keep it and enjoy it myself if reporting it  would be that chance of it disappearing again  how would they know ?

[Mike H.]

Clean it up and display it.  It is nobody's hypothetical business where is came from, nor do you have to hypothetically say where it came from.  If somebody hypothetically dropped off a cannon barrel on your doorstep, you would not have to explain that one either.  You just have it.  Heck, you could have hypothetically found it buried in your yard after a hard rain exposed the end.

[Cannoneer]

Hypothetically speaking, say someone you know found a Civil War cannon barrel in a river in Florida.  For fun, say it was buried in the mud and preserved so well that the numbers were still readable.
Would that be finders keepers?
Zulu

Zulu,

I've done a little bit of research on this topic before, so here's my limited understanding of some of the points made on this thread.
As for the ownership of all CSA war material: As far as the U.S. Government was, and still is concerned; when Robert E. Lee signed the surrender papers at Appomattox, the ordnance (all military material) that had belonged to the CSA, then became the property of the Federal Government.

The U.S. Department of the Navy has legal ownership and is solely responsible for any sunken U.S. Navy vessel, and that includes all Confederate shipwrecks. This is international law; it doesn't just pertain to U.S. controlled waters. We've got a past thread here about the CSS Alabama, and the Alabama serves as a case in point; even though the ship was sunk off the French coast in 1864, and discovered by a French Naval vessel in 1984, the ship and everything on or from the ship is internationally recognized as belonging to the United States Navy.   

Theoretically speaking, I think that the U.S. Army (Director of the U.S. Army Center of Military History) has similar authority over any artillery artifacts discovered on U.S. territory, but there also seems to be a gray area involved here (this would also include U.S. Navy guns not connected with a wreck). Due to the fact that official records of this ordnance are in many instances unavailable, or in other cases sketchy at best, and because so many of these artillery pieces were given/donated/loaned by Federal authorities to organizations like the G.A.R., towns, cemeteries, colleges, etc., or simply sold outright in bulk quantities to military surplus stores like Bannermans; I believe that for them to prove ownership becomes a much more difficult undertaking. 

This directly pertains to Zulu’s original question: This guy actually did find a U.S. M1835 Mountain Howitzer buried in his backyard in California. Just speaking for myself, I don’t know that I would necessarily feel the need to document the fact that I’d found a mountain howitzer buried in my backyard, by taking it to be appraised on the “Antiques Roadshow.” After the show ended, I wonder if he tried to get a hold of somebody at the U.S. Army CMH; hey General, what do you say, can I keep it?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200404A36.html