Mystery cannon

[cannonmn]

Thanks to Seacoast, who posted the discussion "Cannons through a keyhole," my interest in one of the pieces of iron lying in the basement has been renewed.  They posted a photo of a cannon in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which is clearly a twin to one in my basement.  Maybe now that two of them are known, we'll have enough information to identify them.  Maybe someone has seen a third one that's in better condition so we'll be able to decipher the enigmatic logo cast into the reinforce.

Actually, looking at Seacoast's photo a little closer, the New Bedford cannon is in much better condition than mine.  Maybe Seacoast would be kind enough to look at their original photo, zoom in on it, and see if they can identify the animal? in that logo.  Is it an eagle or what?  Mine's too far gone for a good ID.

To save your having to track it down in the Seacoast discussion, here's a link to their photo (hopefully they won't mind my posting the link here, if there's a problem let me know and I'll delete it.)

http://www.fototime.com/698F57620AD92DF/standard.jpg


Specs on mine:

LOA 26 in.
Bore 1.8 in.
Trunnion dia.  1.8 in.
Trunnion length 2 in.
Muzzle OD 5 in.
Basering OD 5.5 in.
Length between rimbases 5 in.
Guesstimated weight:  90 lbs.
Marks:  "PROVED" cast in rectangle on top;
   unidentified logo cast in relief on reinforce

My theory:  I'm guessing this is an "insurance" gun, and more specifically, was probably meant to be a swivel-mounted insurance gun.  It is awfully small to use as a carriage gun.  The trunnions are just below centerline, there's about 1/2 inch distance between bore centerline and trunnion centerline.  This isn't a true "low line" arrangement, where generally the top of the trunnions are on centerline and the bottom of the trunnion is nearly aligned with the bottom of the tube.  The one in NB and mine were probably both used at sea since they both exhibit what looks like seawater corrosion, but I'm not positive one can accurately differentiate between "stored outside" rain corrosion and salt spray corrosion, short of analyzing the metal for salt content.

What do you think?

Again, thanks to Seacoast for posting the interesting photos.

[A.Roads]

Clearly for the commercial sea going market - probably could have served as either a signal cannon or a swivel, or both. It was certainly rather cheeky casting the word "PROVED" into it.
Adrian 

[cannonmn]

The Seacoast folks were kind enough to send me better pix of the cannon and the logo thing.  The breech cyphers, logos, whatever you want to call them, are in almost every single instance I've ever seen, made to be viewed from behind the breech.  When I look at the better pix from SC, it does look a bit like an eagle with left wing spread, facing to his left, and right wing folded.  I have a good customer in the New Bedford area and maybe next time I'm delivering something large to him I'll see if I can get into the museum's attic with a good flashlight.

[Cannoneer]

If the legend on the chase read 'new & im-PROVED' I'd think one could better estimate an approximate date for this piece.