Waterloo or not...

[Jim McDougall]

Actually I had not given it any thought, and simply recalled research of years ago when I was obsessed with the "Charge of the Light Brigade" and the cannons, which were the focus of the immortal charge.

'cannon to the left of them, cannon to the right of them, cannon in front of them, volley'd and thunder'd'

I was not suggesting anything, but as this item is said to be from Sevastopol, my memory to countless years of research on the charge was piqued.

Batjka translated the inscription, clearly Cyrillic, and suggested perhaps it was a fragment of a shell from the Crimean War. Somehow that triggered thoughts of the charge and the lines of the Tennyson poem, and the famed photo.
I actually had no thought of the character of the ball shown, whether it was authentically exploded or not, nor why it was mounted, except I will note that there are countless souvenir items from that war with such labels.
As far as I have known these are generally items which belonged to members of the units in the Crimea, presentation items to such groups, and personal keepsakes.
I have never seen 'marketing' souvenirs from this war personally, so would not have thought of such an instance for this example of what is commonly known as 'trench art'.

In trying to add interesting information pertaining to Sevastopol, as suggested by Batjka, I did not realize I had postured such a perplexing notion.