Wow, 3,000 views of this thread is reason enough to say thanks! :cool:

This wall gun is a great historical piece and unique in any private collection worldwide.

I am very happy to have been able and hold it.


m

Two similar and contemoprary, but notably smaller Nuremberg barrels of wallguns, the first ca. 1520, the second with its shorter muzzle section ca. 1510-15, both struck with a Gothic minuscule p mark, which, when found on bronze barrels, can be safely attriuted to the Nuremberg founder Sebald Behaim whose name was pronounced Pehaim in his Franconian dialect.

The other prolific Nuremberg bronze foundry, that of Endres Pegnitzer, can be safely ruled out for marked barrels as he is known to have signed his barrels EPGM, for Endres Pegnitzer Goss Mich (Endres Pegnitzer founded me), the letters characteristically cast in high relief within a coat-of-arms.

In safe conclusion this means that for barrels unsigned and unmarked, either foundry of Behaim/Pehaim or Pegintzer may be held accountable while when a bronze/brass barrel is struck with a minuscule p mark, it should be attributed to the Behaim/Pehaim workshop.

Attached at bottom is a very fine but unsigned and unmarked Nuremberg wallgun barrel of ca. 1520-25, preserved retaining an unusually charming emerald green patina.


m

One more close-up of the rear section; as on most early-16th c. bronze barrels, the originally swiveling pan cover is missing while the riveted pin is preserved.

For early-16th c. Nuremberg barrels of arquebuses (small 'long' guns), please see

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15381

Another, similiar early-16th c. Nuremberg wallgun bronze/brass barrel is preserved in the George F. Harding collection, in The Art Institute of Chicago.

It seems from the photo that the pan has been removed from the right-hand side of the breech.

m

Incredible Michael, just came across this thread.
Any new information on these wall guns? :)

I found a very interesting website on hand cannons.
http://milpas.cc/rifles/ZFiles/Black...Matchlocks.htm

Hi Marcus,


And thanks for re-enlivening that old thread of mine. Yes, that's a highly important historic piece in virtually 'untouched' condition for 500 years! Imagine! :cool: Apart from the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg and the privately owned Schloss Hohenlohe-Langenburg, where I took some of the images posted in this thread, they do not exist in any German, Austrian or Swiss museum or any private collection (except mine)!

Had I new information on such items I would post it right away.


The old site on early hand cannon has one big flaw: the tiny photos that cannot be enlarged! :o
How can anybody possibly design a site like that??!!! Grrrrrrr ....



Best,
m

I found a other bronze hackbut like yours. Sold trough Sotheby's but i can't find it anywhere.

http://i41.tinypic.com/rihlat.jpg

I recall this one; it was mounted on the present 'carriage' in the 19th c., the Nuremberg barrel ca. 1515-20 but heavily overcleaned.

It cannot match my unique piece in any way.


m

Quit right Michael, but still you have to admit that the basic form is the same :p

Sadly, most museums care more about making there presentations as shiny as can be, instead of teaching the folks the facts. A simple photoshop artist could have made the same shiny barrel on paper :(

I found another haquebut (?) matchlock gun on the web, no other pictures though.

edit: wait a second, this is yours Michael?

http://i39.tinypic.com/110adte.jpg

Yes, Marcus,


I'm extremely proud to say that this indeed is my piece! :cool: :D

I ordered many extra images right before the auction from Tom Del Mar and then bought it, together with the unique combined matchlock and flintlock MONTECUCCOLI musket including its original long folding bayonet from the Stauffenberg collection in Franconia/Bavaria, where it was since it was made in 1666! This makes me only the second owner of the Montecuccoli piece after 350 years - imagine!!! Both pieces are in fine, virtualy 'untouched' and patinated condition. The Montecuccoli musket M 1666 is the one with the pierced butt in the second and third images attached.

The catalog description of the short brass-alloy barrel arquebus with the earliest kind of pre-petronel cherrywood full stock (German krummer Landsknechtkolben) was completely misreading the facts that the barrel is of Maximilian Landsknecht type, most probably cast in Maximilian I's foundry of Mühlau near Innsbruck in about 1495-1500 and struck with a characteristic Late-Gothic founder's mark, The gun obviously was restocked during the South German peasant wars (Bauernkriege) of 1525, and the primitive snap-tinderlock of that Early-Renaissance period was, obsolete by long then, 'modernized' in the High-Baroque period, when everything was badly needed that would still fire: at the end of the Thirty Years War, the 1640's, by re-using an older matchlock mechanism of ca. 1580-1600. I associated an original long tiller trigger to the gun and put it on my wall. Done!

I will post these two guns in separate threads when I can take good images in spring!
Till then, the images attached will have to do. :p


Best,
Michael

The pictures are good enough to make me go :eek:

I found a pile of pictures on the web, apparantly a nice overview site for all sorts of pictures and subjects. :o

http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=handgonnes
http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=handgonne

Many of these photos are by me!

Michael

I also found this book on handgonnes, but i am not sure about its scientific accuracy :o
"Medieval Handgonnes: The first black powder infantry weapons, by Sean Mclachlan"

http://www.amazon.com/kindle/dp/B004...ext_eos_detail

It's not expensive but I have a copy and it was not worth it. The few photos of original pieces are from the Royal Armouries Leeds and are printed tiny.
As far as the 'Medieval' site is concerned: how serious can you expect a booklet to be when the title (!) page illustrates a true Medieval long gun next to a detached wall gun barrel of ca. 1600 when the Middle Ages were over for 100 years?! :mad:

m

Another, similar and simultaneous, Nuremberg copper alloy/bronze hackbut barrel, ca. 1515-20, is preserved in the collection at Grandson castle, Switzerland.
The pan is an inapt later addition.

For both temporary and stylistic comparison, I attached another, earlier, ca. 1500-10, of characteristic French make, retaining its original pan that never had a cover (!), fitted with trunnions and cast in high relief with a coat-of-arms, from the same museum.


m

Duck Tales: An All American Auction - and The World's Finest Haquebut Barrel
 

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE RESPECTIVE BUYER (who may have been the same in both cases).

The first item is the most ridiculous and primitive mid 20th c. "Italian" piece made to fool the biggest fool ever.

Compared to that, Goofy's "blunderbusses" are purest gold; they, at least, are funny ...

The second item is the world's finest known Nuremberg cast brass, or "bronze", haquebut barrel, half a millennium old, unmatched, and once ordered by an important person of history:
Ulrich von Schellenberg,
whose extremely fine Katzbalger is preserved in the Vienna Habsburg Armory, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.

They both fetched the same price, in the land of ... whatsoever.

The consigner, and the auction house, succeeded in generating a truly Freudian slip, misspelling
"hackbutt", for haquebut/hackbut.
On second thought, though, they mave been right ...

The State of Austria could not afford to purchase that singular piece - not now, nor in years in come ...
Tu felix Austria ..?!


A very sad "Good Night",
from a very sad

Michael,
who did his very best to save that barrel
but had to quit,
or commit murder suicide ... :mad:

I bet the oldest item in the images is the wooden stand ...

Just look at the crispness of the drilled touch hole - a 15th c. barrel smith would just have punched the hole through the red hot barrel ...

Of course, that would have left a notable mold around the hole which, at the same time, would have held enough priming powder for the igniting iron to set off the load!

All this is so blatantly obvious that it seems just unbelievable.


m

.

Characteristic of the Nuremberg sense of style in the mid-1530's, the barrel is shaped and sectioned like the columns in contemporary archictecture. Reflecting the traditional Nuremberg style seen on the earlier, five-staged barrel of the wall gun in The Michael Trömner Collection, it is divided into four main sections, separated and subdivided by filed moldings, thistle shaped acanthus trefoils (German: Akanthus-Dreipässe) chiseled in high relief, and scales (German: Schuppenfriese).
The acanthus motif is an important element based on the decoration of the capitals of Corinthian columns; Renaissance art renewed the Ancient Greek and Roman styles.

The rear section (German: Hinterstück) is typically square, its beveled edges of ploygonal shape; it comprises the short base (German: Bodenstück), which is most probably ten-sided or octagonal, and the rear sight cast integrally. Contrary to the usual deep vertical slot, on this barrel, the back sight is pierced horizontally with a small hole.
The location of the pan for the priming powder marks the beginning of the breech (German: Pulversack oder Pulverkammer). The originally riveted swiveling pan cover is now missing, showing the horizontal slot above the pan, cut for a "rainproof" fit. The crisp chisel marks, used for gouging out the round pan trough (German: Pfannentrog) around the touch hole, denote that this finely wrought barrel saw little use.
As is the case with most large cast-brass/bronze objects, the greenish patina shows some rusty dots in places; these are traces of iron fixings that had to be mounted to stabilize the model during the founding process.

The profusely punched and chiseled Late Gothic/Early Renaissance style of decoration starts at the base of this barrel, showing petulated trefoils (German: gestielter Dreipass) on both sides, and soon lozenge patterns (German: Rautenmuster) are added; cf. the author's thread on the so-called "Monk's Gun":
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=monk%27s

The rear section also bears the cast and chiseled coat-of-arms (German: Stammwappen), denoting that this piece of finest arts and crafts alike was made by order of, and for, a member of the von Schellenberg family. It is surmounted by the proudly chiseled monogram I.V.R., for Iohann Ulrich Ritter (knight), reflecting the singular position of its owner.
For decades, Reichsritter Ulrich von Schellenberg zu Kißlegg (1478–1549),Doctor beider Rechte, served both the Habsburg Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V. as an Eques auratus, a Feldhauptmann and Kriegsrat.
The Doctor of Both Laws (Doktor beider Rechte), Dr. iur. utr., meant considering both Civil Law and Canonical Law; Knight of the Golden Spur (H.R.E.) is the English equivalent of Eques auratus (German: Ritter vom güldenen Sporn). Furthermore, he was Captain and War Council.


Accentuated by three grained scales (German: Schuppenfriese mit gekörntem Grund), the rear section of the barrel changes to a long and edged center section (German: Mittelstück), including two subsections: a shorter two-stage octagonal length, changing to a longer ten-sided section. Typically, the center section shows the smallest outer diameter of the barrel. Its upper surface, originally not covered by the stock, is subdivided and quantized by filed moldings and acanthus leafs; additionally, flames cut in high relief dart blazing towards the muzzle. In the Gothic and Renaissance sense of style, a gun barrel represents the scary metal embodiment of a sea monster, a serpent, or a mythologic dragon breathing fire; thus, this winding ornament symbolizes the vivid movement of both a serpent and a flame. Moreover, in the superstitious contemporary minds, it was believed to have an apotropaic effect, fending off evil.

Another frieze of moldings marks the forward section of the barrel (German: Vorderstück), the muzzle area (Mündungskopf). It is notably longer than the one of the barrel in the author's collection, which is about two decades older, but retains the basic slightly swamped shape. As the latest Nuremberg stylistic element originating in the early 1520's*, its muzzle is rounded now, and the integral blade foresight has moved a bit to the rear, when compared to pre-1520's muzzle sections.

These stylistic features identified and defined by the author are fundamental for assigning a time line of origin to a gun barrel, and their result will prove to be significantly closer, and safer, than "first half 16th century".



Michael Trömner
Rebenstr. 9
D-93326 Abensberg
Lower Bavaria, Germany

• Self-established Academic Medievalist
  
• Graduated from Regensburg University in 1982
• Stipendiary recipient and member of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, Bonn
  
• Author of BEHÄLTNISSE FÜR KOSTBARES 1500-1700, 2005
• M. of the Arms & Armour Society, London since 1991
• M. of the Gesellschaft für Historische Waffen- und Kostümkunde e.V., Berlin since 1987
  
• Expertises in European weapons, ironworks, and furniture of the 14th through 17th centuries
• Preservation and academic documentation of museum collections

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Here is a nice link to the Ulrich von Schellenberg hackbut.
press on play for the interesting slide show about the von Schellenberg hackbut gun.

http://slideplayer.us/slide/203796/

best,
jasper

Thanks a lot, Jasper,


I have known that video since 2006.
J.D. Julia also put a link on their site.
Sadly, the quality is too poor to judge the rank of the barrel, and the state of condition it was actually in.

The owner and I were in touch until December 2011 but he refused to take high-resolution images.


Best,
Michael

As the following definition is basic for the subject of this thread, here is what I have often pointed out since 2008.




Re: BRASS or "BRONZE" barrels?


Material type: Copper alloy

This term should be used for any alloy which appears to include copper. It is only if you know for sure that the item is a particular alloy (e.g. bronze, brass, gun metal, speculum) that you can correctly identify, and term, the item in question.

Most of the time, though, you will be able to identify the alloy only from the appearance, weight and type of object (e.g. leaded bronze for Medieval and post-Medieval cooking vessels, or brass for Byzantine buckets, or bronze for Bronze Age objects, bell-metal for bells, speculum for Roman mirrors, etc etc) and so the identification will not be certain.


Therefore if you do certainly know the type of alloy because you have had a compositional analysis, then it is very important to say this.


Also, keep in mind that the historic and contemporary term for cast-copper alloy barrels was BRASS.




Michael Trömner

Michael I hope you are able to work out a solution to this problem, I and many other people will be reading your various posts here for years to come trying to glean as much of the incredibly valuable information you have very generously shared with all of us here, I personally can not thank you enough, years of reading books on the subjects you have discussed here would not replace what you have written.

Hello Michael!

Nice to see you back on the forum!

I have a question for you: Do you have any more info on the black steel bow crossbow in post #65? It looks like an auction crossbow.

And thank you for the Hermannstadt crossbow in post #68! Lovely printed design on the bow!

As you may have noticed I have been having quite some hard times, and they are not over yet .

I promise you and all the others that I will be back right soon, and as quickly as possible.
Just do let me and my computer take another time-out for about 10 days or so.


Best,
Michael

Michael, you have an email ... and now a PM

The Armoury of the Princely House of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, removed from Schloss Langenburg
the doppelhaken of #6, recently sold at Thomas del mar, 3/12 lot 255
best,
Jasper