INCREDIBLY RARE FULL PAPER WRAPPED BULLET & POWDER FROM THE CIVIL WAR

I have only owned one of these in 40+ years; this is the second I have had for sale, consigned by a collector to The History Bank for sale. I found the one example I ever owned (and sold in the 1990s) in one of many outstanding antiquarian stores in Gettysburg.

I visited Gettysburg many times, on relic hunting trips and on trips with my family. I have not been back in many years and cannot share any details about the retail shops in the city now. But in the 1980s and 1990s it was a collector's heaven with so many stores selling Civil War relics. And most of those stores were owned by very reputable and longtime sellers; collectors could be much more assured that what they were buying was genuine. Today, in the age of ebay, it is tougher and tougher to be sure. This item is from the Tom McCarthy collection. When we held our Civil War sale in 2025 two dozen of the items were from the McCarthy collection. Tom has one of the finest collections of Civil War books anywhere. I was fortunate to have access to his library and collection several times for research when I was writing Civil War histories.

While selling something this rare it becomes very difficult to price. Most collectibles find their logical price point by considering their history of prices realized over recent years. Because this wrapped package is so fragile (you can see granules of gunpowder that have begun to leak through tiny tears in the paper) it is almost never found intact. Consequently, we have no record of similar one sold. When I found the single example in the 1980s I sold it for about $200. I believe that if you found another today it might cost you twice what we are asking here.

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