Anyone who shops on Amazon knows that sometimes the dupe is as good as the original, but in this case what was supposed to be a replica turned out to be real. And potentially deadly.
A Texas man who believed he owned a replica of a piece of Civil War artillery, and treated it casually, discovered it was actually live ammunition.
The man had owned the ordnance for years, thinking it was a dummy round, until a military friend suspected it was live. So, he called the local sheriff's department in Atascosa County.
And they confirmed his pal's suspicions.
An explosive disposal unit confirmed the roughly 160-year-old ammunition was live and safely disposed of it at an explosive range. No one was harmed, and no charges are pending in this incident.
Live wartime ammunition discoveries, like this one, occasionally occur in the U.S. and other countries, such as Canada.
But 160-year-old pieces of artillery are extremely rare. In this case, what he had was a Parrott round, a projectile fired from a Parrott rifle. According to the National Park Service, it was "an effective tool in destroying brick-and-mortar fortifications" and was employed with “devastating effect” by Union forces against Confederate-held territories.
"Developed in 1860 by Robert Parrott, an inventor and businessman who was superintendent of the West Point Foundry, the Parrott rifle spun when it was fired, elongating and stabilizing its trajectory, making it a much more accurate weapon than prior designs," Global News reported.
