1666: The MONTECUCCOLI Flintlock/Matchlock System - a MYTH Verified!

[Matchlock]

The Michael Trömner Collection is the only collection known to hold a true sample of the legendary M 1666 MONTECUCCOLI type, coming straight from the family armory (German: Rüstkammer) of The Counts Schenk von Stauffenberg, Schloss Greifenstein, Markt Heiligenstadt, Upper Franconia, Bavaria, Germany, and was consigned with Sotheby's by the present Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg.
The piece is preserved in optimum original condition overall.
I won it phone bidding at SOTHEBY's London sale of 10 July 2002, lot 242.


Now which criteria exactly define a true Montecuccoli Musket?

1.
The combined flintlock and matchlock igniting mechanims unified on the same lock plate

2.
A pivoted safety catch mounted behind the cock, and engaging with a notch at the foot of the cock when the latter is pulled back beyond the half-cock safety notch of the tumbler; this feature allows for the match holder to be moved backwards, with the matchcord touching the bottom of the pan through a round hole in the pan cover of the steel after opening an additional pivoted swiveling pan cover, like the one covering the pan of any common matchlock gun

3.
A single trigger simultaneously acting on both the flintlock cock and the match holder (serpentine) the long folding bayonet mounted at the underside of the forestock

4.
Consequently, the ramrod is mounted on the left side of the forestock

5.
The beechwood butt stock is ovally pierced to provide a safe grip to the fingers of the guardsman when moving forward, with the bayonet folded out for attack

6.
The number of the guardsman of the body guard (German: Leibgarde) of Raimund Fürst Montecuccoli, struck on the iron butt mount (German: Kolbenblech); the piece in The Michael Trömner Collection is stamped 19 denoting that it was originally employed by guardsman no. 19.



Anton Dolleczek, in: Monographie der k.u.k. österr.-ung. Blanken und Hand-Feuerwaffen, Wien, 1896, pl. VII illustrates a 'Muskette (sic!) 1666 (nach Montecuccoli.)', together with its 'Charnier-Bajonett. 1640.' On p. 60, however, due to the 19th century lack of knowledge, Dolleczekasserts some incorrect facts, like the invention of the flintlock igniting mechanism in France in '1640'; actually it had been invented no later than in the early 17th c., at the latest by the second decade.


Alas, a large group of 1680's Suhl manufactured muskets is incorrectly identified by the present Graz museum staff, and consequently defined as belonging to the almost mythic MONTECUCCOLI system.
I have sufficient proof to state that the Graz curators succeeding in office to Dr. Peter Krenn, all have neglected the obvious fact that all the combined flintlock and matchlock Suhl muskets in both the arsenal collections of the Graz Landeszeughaus (Arsenal) and the Vienna Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Army museum) are actually far from deserving to be termed as 'MONTECUCCOLI' muskets ...

About eight years ago, the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna even acquired six combined Flintlock and matchlock military muskets of the plain and common type that was manufactured in large numbers in Suhl/Thuringia, in the 1680's. They had been offered to various people before, including dealers like Franz Christof and collectors like me, by an elderly couple whose name I remember well; the husband had found them beneath an old stairway in a Schloss in Thuringia, where they had been hidden since the end of Wolrd War II.
Actually, they were preserved in a virtually 'untouched' but very bad state of condition: the barrels and locks were partly covered with aggressive reddish and floccose rust, and the beechwood full stocks were mildewed in places.
I was among those getting offered them first, and I took many good photographs, which of course I will post.

Anyway, I told the owners that the guns were definititely NOT Montecuccoli muskets but belonged to a common and much plainer type produced in large numbers, and represented in many museums, e.g. the Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM)/Altes Zeughaus Berlin, Schloss Erbach/Odenwald, as well as in the historic Steirisches Landeszeughaus (Styrian arsenal) Graz and the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum(HGM) Vienna.

Together with a friend of mine, I offered them 20,000 euro for that group of six but our offer was turned down, and on the couple drove, with the muskets rolled up in blankets and stored in the trunk of their car.
Franz Christof, who claimed to have good contacts to them, was quite confident that he would get at least two muskets out of the six but got disappointed as well.
I really got startled, though when I was a few weeks later I learned that the HGM Vienna had purchased them for true Montecuccoli muskets, and paid an immense price out of reality ...
By then, the HGM already possessed a sample of exactly that general arsenal type of late combined flintlock and matchlock muskets.
Moreover, nobody could anticipate the actual condition of the iron parts underneath that aggressive reddish and floccose rust; there may have been severe rust pits on the barrels ... maybe the HGM curators proceeded from the sad fact that all their guns on exhibition had been crudely cleaned with acid, and using other abhorring methods of 'restoration'. The result can be seen in their showrooms: even the tiniest trace of original lackered varnish had been stripped from the stocks, and all of that original and characteristic roughness of 16th to 19th century beechwood stocks had been radically polished off - making those old 'military' pieces appear like the smooth stocks of Rococo and Empire sporting guns.
So these museum people, with their perverted philosophy of 'restoration', may have envisioned the sight these muskets would offer after the 'cleaning' process anyway - abhorring though it really is.

In the author's opinion, such rebarbative treatment and willfully done alterations of original surfaces delete once and forever all the important documentary traces of both historic craftsmanship and manufacturing methods.
What is even more, those plain and usually undecorated 'military' guns get robbed of their only inherent kind of magic attraction: besides their historic, cultural and technical development it is mainly their original surfaces which - enriched and protected by patina, thus proving their great age even to the untrained eye - immediately, and with the psychologic impact of a sudden blow transport right into the 21st century the horrors of war in general, and especially of wars and individual fates long gone since ...



Best,
Michael/Michl
Michael Trömner

[Marcus den toom]

I have been awaiting this thread for some time, what a monumental musket this is. I remember when i held it and the spear like bayonet folded out....

"The buttstock was made like this so you could hold onto the musket when using this bayonet" you told me, after i asked why they would make it like this. And i tested it (by stabing the innocent air in front of me), very practical.

Would such a gun been used in the wars in the Netherlands. Raimondo Montecuccoli has waged war with the French in my lovely country so i am very interested

"Richiesto taluno delle cose necessarie alla guerra, egli rispondesse tre esser quelle: denaro, denaro, denaro“ ( "For war you need three things: 1. Money. 2. Money. 3. Money.")
To get said money you apparently only have to sell something "ordinary" to a museum.... Maybe they should make reading these threads mandatory for museum curators, it couldn't do them any harm (hasn't done me any anyway).

[Matchlock]

The two attachments at the bottom of this post depict Schloss Greifenstein, Markt Heiligenstadt, Upper Franconia, Bavaria, Germany, and a view of the family armory (German: Rüstkammer) of The Counts Schenk von Stauffenberg.
For centuries, this armory held the fine combined flintlock and matchlock musket of MONTECUCCOLI type, obviously after it was deaccessioned on the death of Raimondo Montecuccoli, in October 1680.

[Matchlock]

For comprehensive information on Raimondo, Count of Montecúccoli or Montecucculi (German: Raimund Graf Montecúccoli), 21 February 1609 at Schloss Montecuccolo in Pavullo ne Frignano near Modena, Italy – 16 October 1680 in Linz/Austria, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raimondo_Montecuccoli



Attachments:

- Schloss Montecuccolo

- Portrait by Elias Grießler, at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (HGM) Vienna

- Another contemporary portrait

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