Help with proof marks.
 

Can anybody please help with identifying these proof marks on a Dutch matchlock ? The barrel is marked with the guild mark associated with the port of Vlissingen better known to British sailors as Flushing. The mark shown is struck twice but with a different scale of punch. There's a possibility this was one of the many Dutch muskets imported for the English civil war. The mark has superficial similarities with the arms of the Company of Blacksmiths but maybe that's just wishfull thinking.

Haven't found what I think is a definite match, but am wondering if there are initials (I K? I R? L K? L R?) within the more clearly-struck mark. If so, there are some similar (but not exact) marks associated with some of the Kletts, and I found the below with the initials L R. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

Would you please show us the entire gun, Raf ...

As requested.

Great gun ... and great set :cool:.

This can also be a Nuenberg mark, see Neuer Stöckel p. 1095

The proof master'... will mark all kinds of barrels made in this city with the coat of arms of the city crowned with fleurons; musket barrels bought from elsewhere with the same coat of arms with a crown with simple pearls. Utrecht 1628 , modified 1659 and 1667. Is the reference to 'simple pearls' the three dots that seem to feature in a number of marks ?

That's nice. Can I ask what the bore and barrel length is please? Very interested in the debates around the use of musket rests during the mid C17th and whether lighter muskets is what led to their demise, or where they just discard anyway.

Hi . The barrel length is 43 inches and the bore about 3/4 inch. It isn't always appreciated that these fishtail muskets with high but combs cannot really be aimed braced against the shoulder. The gun is supported entirely by the arms so the weight is an issue hence the rest. De Gheyn differentiates between muskets , fired from a rest and callivers fired without a rest.In Britain the council of war 1630 defined a caliver barrel as 39 inches and a musket as 48 inches . They also recommended a musket barrel of 42 inches . Then ordered 5,000 muskets with 54 inch barrels and 10,000 with 42 inch barrels ! The attached image ; 1646 suggests at the start of the civil war rests were still being used. Military doctrine of the period emphasised firepower over accuracy. Furthermore the 'countermarch' Where front ranks gave fire and marched to the back to reload perhaps made the rest more an unnecessary encumbrance and may have been gradually abandoned. Certainly by the 1660s stock shapes changed to a more modern profile showing that the musket was now braced against the shoulder and perhaps at this point the rest was considered no longer necessary.