Dating Earliest Barrels: the Importance of the Position of the Touch Hole

[Matchlock]

The remainder of photos of that Viertelhaken.


Note the top edge of the barrel acting as a foresight, and the only area of the stock where the leach did not do much harm: right below the muzzle.

Now imagine that small gun completely painted red 570 years ago - what a colorful impact those haquebuts must have conveyed originally!

Illustrations by Bartholomäus Freysleben, 1495-1500, and Jörg Kölderer, 1507, from the Maximilian armory inventories, depict the original color effect of stocks and barrels painted red and green, the Late-Gothic basic colors.

[Matchlock]

Further attachments to post #1:

- Bohemian/Czech wrought-iron haquebut barrels, ca. 1430-40 (Hussite Wars) to 1460, the earliest without a pronounced muzzle section.

- A socketed Nuremberg wrought-iron barrel, ca. 1450-60, retaining much of its original red lead minium paint (German: Mennige), with short, swamped snout-shaped muzzle, the hook deeply struck with the barrelsmith's mark, an arrow which has proven to be a characteristic Nuremberg workshop mark that was carried on as long as the 1530's. It is found on Nuremberg arquebus barrels dated 1537 in the Bavarian Army Museum Ingolstadt, and on cranequins.
Measurements:
l. overall 99 cm, weight ca. 10 kg, maximum outer diameter 7.8 cm at socket, in front of the touch hole 5.3 cm, hook 10 cm in front of muzzle, bore 25 mm.

[Matchlock]

Further attachments to post #13, depicting the haquebut on the bottom on the first photo of four, at Hermann Historica's, 14 October 1994, lot 452.
Overall length 112 cm, weight ca. 12-15 kg, ca. 1470-80.

The octagonal barrel with touch hole pierced irregularly on the top flat, surrounded by a wall that acted as an igniting pan and a low fire shield to the shooter simultaneously; not sighted. The long, flat hook struck twice with the Vienna city mark, a cross within a shield. Short, swamped muzzle flat. The faceted, six-sided oak stock with an early form of what was to become the Landsknecht buttstock, branded with an illegible Gothic arsenal numbering (4, surmounted by 7?). Like all haquebuts still preserved in the Vienna arsenal, this stock, too, hardly had any trace of patina left. It makes one doubt whether it was the original.

[Matchlock]

Further attachments to two more haquebuts introduced in post #13.


A heavy tiller haquebut (German: ganzer Haken), lot 453, overall length 126.5 cm, barrel length 40 cm, weight ca. 12 kg, ca. 1480-90, for an Alpine region like Austria.
The hexagonal wrought-iron barrel struck with various magic symbols (three dots, a cross and X symbol) and a primitive numbering above the breech; short, heavily swamped muzzle section with one edge turned upwards to act as a foresight, accentuated by a small frieze roped decoratively (German: Schnürlbandfries). Short, stepped hook. Relatively small touch hole at rear end of barrel, with spaciously hollowed, surrounding trough for a priming mass, and low rear fire shield, the oak wood tiller buttstock of early Landsknecht type, incised with a long horizontal, V-shaped forerunner of a rear sight immediately in front of the rear barrel section, and branded with an indistinct armorial shield, maybe an arsenal mark of Vienna.
Three long tiller haquebuts still preserved in the Vienna arsenal (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum Wien) bear the same branded symbol (see two attachments), their stocks heavily leached, the wrought-iron barrels retaining traces of their original red lead minium coating.

[Matchlock]

Three more images of lot 453.


And another heavy tiller haquebut (German: ganzer Haken), lot 454, overall length 153 cm, the longest of the group of four at Hermann Historica's, barrel length 42.5 cm, weight ca. 10-12 kg, ca. 1460-70, maybe even somewhat earlier.
The wrought-iron octagonal barrel with long, segmented rear socket for the long, rounded oaken tiller stock which, just like the barrel, retained traces of original green paint! The rear end of the stock was shaped for easier handling. At the rear of the top barrel flat there was a round touch hole surrounded by a hollowed pan for the priming mass, and with a raised fire shield to the rear; the top flat punched over all its length with magic symbols: the inscription of the Holy Cross: INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum), various cryptic symbols, scales and X-shaped symbols. Slightly swamped muzzle, small stepped hook.
Of that group of four haquebuts, this one retained most of its original undistorted coloring and patina. If it had not been for the most 'modern' criterion, the roped muzzle frieze, I would have dated the barrel to the mid-15th c.

[Matchlock]

Two more images of lot 454.

m

[Matchlock]

An important and extremely rare, small, wrought-iron handgonne barrel for throwing incendiary arrows or stone balls (German: Steinbüchse), ca. 1360-80.

Of octagonal section throughout, large conical touch hole, the muzzle widened and with heavily swamped section. It would have originally been fastened to a long stock with two iron bands.
The rear end is still rounded, denoting its close proximity to the Loshult gun!
Length 20 cm, bore 25 mm at muzzle.

Sold Hermann Historica, Munich, 7 April 2008.


Best,
m