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Neville_C wrote:
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Note that the Morton & Eden horseshoe is made from an actual driving band (though not from a "Long Tom" shell), whereas the others have been made to look like such. The grooves in the copper, which have been added by the farrier, are neither evenly spaced nor parallel to one another, as would be the case if they had been formed by the rifling of a barrel. Despite this, it seems likely that the metal used, did, as stated, come from driving band fragments. Gerrans, the well-known Mafeking souvenir-maker, certainly reworked copper in this way.

From the M & E catalogue photo, I think the Sergt. Howard horseshoe was probably made from a British Naval 12-pdr QF driving band. See: British 12 and 15-pdr Shells and their Driving Bands

In comparison to their field-gun equivalents, 155mm Creusot driving bands were hefty pieces of copper. Below are a couple of photographs showing a Naval 12-pdr QF band alongside a "Long Tom" example (at their highest points, roughly 2.85 mm opposed to 6.8 mm thick). One can see why the likes of Joseph Gerrans opted to melt the Creusot bands before crafting the copper into nakin rings and other such souvenirs. They were simply too thick and heavy to make into trinkets.
















"Long Tom" driving bands were better suited to making metal-working tools than souvenirs. This piece, with traces of solder on its chisel-like tip, came from Mafeking (formerly in the John Ineson Collection).












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