Arquebuse from the Museum of Castle in Nuremberg

[Spiridonov]

caliber 23 mm. About 1500 year. total length on my estimations average 1 meter

[Spiridonov]

else

[Matchlock]

Here are images of a Nuremberg watercolor dated 1502, depicting short arquebuses with exactly the same type of crude buttstock!

Best,
Michael

[fernando]

Fascinating !
Where the hell do you find these things ?

[Matchlock]

This watercolor painting on linen called Die Schlacht im Walde, 1502 (The Forest Battle) is on display at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg, on the left side of the entrance to the great arms hall.
Sadly, almost nobody cares about it.

I took lots of images of it over the years, many of which I posted here in earlier threads, e.g.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...schlacht+walde

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...schlacht+walde

I post an overall view of it here.


Best,
Michl

[Matchlock]

An astonishingly naturalistic stone sculpture of about 1515, in the Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church) of Reutlingen, Swabia/Germany, picturing an arquebusier holding his short, crude and heavy arquebus which seems to be fitted with a matchlock mechanism - the angular match holder seems to be visible above the left-hand thumb of the arquebusier holding the match near the jaws of the match holder (serpentine), and just above the retangular pan! - , and a length of characteristically thick and early matchcord of hemp.

Please note the similarities between the arquebus of this sculpture and the real piece in Nuremberg; both specimen are quite contemporary in featuring the Late-Gothic style octagonal barrel, although the crude and rounded conifer wood stock of the Nuremberg gun clearly falls short of the perfectly sided elegance of the idealized stock shown in the sculpture.

No outline of a lockplate can be identified on the Reutlingen piece, so we may safely assume that all the single parts of the mechanism of the sculptured Reutlingen arquebus would have simply been nailed or clamped to the stock.
The Nuremberg piece, on the onther hand, is interesting for showing some areas of heavy worm damage and surface losses on the stock. One of these areas is situated on the left-hand side of the stock, opposite of the right-hand side touch hole which is crudely molded to form a primiitive pan. So there is no chance of attributing that worm damage to the fact that originially there was a lock mechanism with a long curved leaf spring nailed to the right-hand side of the stock ...


Best,
Michael

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams Matchlock... Bravo, Bravo !!

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Matchlock]

Thank you so much, Ibrahiim!

With my best salaams,
Michael

[Matchlock]

[QUOTE=
The Nuremberg piece, on the onther hand, is interesting for showing some areas of heavy worm damage and surface losses on the stock. One of these areas is situated on the left-hand side of the stock, opposite of the right-hand side touch hole which is crudely molded to form a primiitive pan. So there is no chance of attributing that worm damage to the fact that originially there was a lock mechanism with a long curved leaf spring nailed to the right-hand side of the stock ...[/QUOTE]


On second thought, and a closer look, these areas of suspected worming just seem to be quite normal damage losses due to both the great age and extreme dryness of the conifer wood (most probably fir or pine tree): there are not traces of worming whatsoever, vertically or horizontally, identifiable on the ground surface!
m