Anyone know what this is?

[Anonymous]

I got permission to hunt a 40 acre farm that has been in use since the 1750's about 6 weeks ago and have been hunting it every weekend.
Last weekend I was hunting in a hay field that had just been mowed and I found this thing I can't ID. It seems to be made out of lead or perhaps pewter. It looks kind of like a squashed musket ball but is much larger and the flat side looks like it was made that way and was not flattened by smashing into something - plus there are no cracks or other things like that which you get with squashed musket balls. In fact if you cut the big end off of an egg about an inch down from the end you end up with something shaped like this thing.
Looks like somebody carved a C or maybe a square in the top and it looks as if there could have been some lettering like a manufacturer's mark on the bottom. It is too heavy for a button as it weighs 2.1 ounces plus there is no sign of a shank.
I also found a button with an "Imperial Standard" backmark on it about 15 feet from this thing. I found one reference to C & R Imperial Standard button company on the net. It was in business from 1790 until sometime in the 1820's. The button was found at about the same depth as this thing.
Anyway here is a picture (the quarter is to provide some scale)

 

[Anonymous]

[No message]

 

[Anonymous]

Looks like it might be the top of a large rivot, which was cut or chiselled off.

 

[Anonymous]

It looks to me like the bottom was manufactured pretty much the way it is now. I can't see any signs that there was ever some other part attached to it and I have examined it under a 40x stereo microscope.

 

[Anonymous]

It could be a scale weight for a balance scale which was why I weighed in the first place. Somebody else also suggested this on another forum as well.
It weighs 2.1 ounces or 61 grams. I just wasn't sure if being 1/10th of an ounce off in 2 ounces was within the normal error range for a scale weight made around 1800 (assuming that the button is a good indication of when the thing was lost).
Also I have a hard time thinking up anything they would be weighing by the ounce on that farm. My understanding is that it was a dairy farm at that time and was quite a bit larger than 40 acres.
The farmer is quite the history buff (in fact he is president of the local history society) and so might know something about it. I just wanted to see if anyone else had found something like it before I talked to him.

 

[Anonymous]

[No message]

 

[Anonymous]

Well, Rob the farmer who owns the land I found this on believe it could have been one of two things. His first thought is that it is just a lead ingot that was eventually meant to be melted down and cast into a musket ball.
His second thought is that it could have been a weight for an egg classifier. Apparently it is just about the right weight for a "Extra Large" egg.

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps it's a stamp/seal!? I am from Ontario, Canada...and worked for quite a few years as an archaeologist. Several items very similar to yours have been found here which are associated with french sites dating back to the late 17th, early 18th century. Although I can't recall the material they were made of. Just a thought.