OK, OK. I know this isn't a weapon, unless you want to kill someone slowly through their liver. Regardless, this is a rum bottle from the 1750's. I found this, in its present state, in a bottom trawl off of Reedy Island Delaware, in the Delaware River. My crew at the time was ready to chuck it back overboard thinking it just an ordinary liquor bottle. I recognized the shape as "old" right away and rescued it from nautical re-internment.
I base the date on bottle shape, a nice exposition of which is presented in the plates between pages 108 and 109 in Robert F. Marx's Shipwrecks in the Americas (I've excerpted a page here without permission from the publisher - I claim "fair use" for the purposes of academic study, but I will gladly take down the image if anyone takes exception) and other sources.
It's not clear if this came from a shipwreck or from some other source, but if it is from a wreck, the above reference offers the Pusey, Captain Good, arriving from Jamaica to Philadelphia and sunk in 1757 off of Reedy Island as a distinct possibility, although there may be dozens of others recorded or non-recorded.
Now here's the really cool bit: the original cork is still down inside the bottle! Maybe pressure pushed it in, or maybe some precolonial boozehound didn't have a corkscrew. Regardless, this is one real piece of history that the Delaware has given up.
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