Balkan gun with early turkish barell

[rickystl]

Hi Eftihis

Almost missed your Thread. WOW!! What an attractive and interesting musket. It certainly does have a Greek/Albania/Turkish flavor to it. LOL

And I agree with Philip's comprehensive comments.

Most of the stock, with it's iron fittings and shape remind me of the Greek muskets. But the butt stock construction reminds me of the muskets from Southern Albania.

As mentioned, the barrel would likely be of Turkish origin. I've never personally seen one up close. You do see barrels from Moroccan snaphaunce with the smaller bulbous muzzle as Philip mentions above. There is a good possibility the barrel is indeed older than the rest of the gun. That would not be surprising. And as Philip mentions, it's a feature that came about during a much earlier period. But, other than aesthetics, I can't come up with a potential reason for the large, over-sized tulip shaped muzzzle (?) I'll have to think about this for a while LOL Also, the decoration and inscriptions on the top of the barrel are most interesting. Don't recall seeing a similar pattern.

If you get a chance, maybe you can take a pic of the bore at the muzzle and a couple pics of the lock.

Again, Congratulations. Great looking addition.

Rick

[eftihis]

Thank you all for your comments! For me the most possible scenario is that this musket was built in a Venetian controlled area, using a captured ottoman barell and a lock from Venetian arsenal. However, the problem is i cannot trace this form of barell in manuscripts and icnography of the period (16th-17th c). Also althought this tye of barell is for sure early turkish. i cannot find it in Askeri museum objects. Also Turkish collectors whom i talked with, they dont know this design! Is it possible taht is a desigm manufactured somewhere in teh Balkans after the ottoman conquest? Here is another musket that uses this type of tylip barell (i thinh in a second use). It belonged to a Cretan revolutionary and is held in the historic-ethnological museum of Athens.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by eftihis

i cannot find it in Askeri museum objects. Also Turkish collectors whom i talked with, they dont know this design! Is it possible taht is a desigm manufactured somewhere in teh Balkans after the ottoman conquest? Here is another musket that uses this type of tylip barell (i thinh in a second use). It belonged to a Cretan revolutionary and is held in the historic-ethnological museum of Athens.

I think you have a point, this type of gun appeared after the Ottoman conquest which as we know was largely completed by the end of the 15th cent.
Do you have access to catalogs of or journal articles based on the museum collections in other parts of the Balkans, such as at Zagreb or Sofia? In the past I have seen publications, in various languages, of arms of different types in museum collections in the Balkan countries. Unfortunately I do not have these in my library, these were published several decades ago so would have to be located on the antiquarian book market.

[eftihis]

Here are some more examples from Elgood's book "the arms of Greece and Balkan neighbors" The last photo is sypposed to be an Italian gun with a turkish tulip barrel, but the photo shows only the stock.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by eftihis

Here are some more examples from Elgood's book "the arms of Greece and Balkan neighbors" The last photo is sypposed to be an Italian gun with a turkish tulip barrel, but the photo shows only the stock.

Here is an example I have, of Brescian manufacture ca. 1630, built on a non-tulip, non-damascus smoothbore Ottoman barrel. The faceted buttstock has a profile that resembles that of the later Balkan guns called dzheferdar. Here, the incised designs are typical north Italian. The interesting thing about this stock is the prominent bulge ahead of the angular trigger-guard, which is a holdover from earlier wheellock guns, whose mechanisms had an outward shape determined by the size and position of the wheel but which was irrelevant with the now-novel miquelet lock.

[Philip]

The earliest surviving examples of these "Spanish" locks dates from the first quarter of the 17th cent., corroborated by signed examples in museums. This one is believed to be made in Brescia, ca 1630, and the gunsmith would have been working with a new, imported technology. There are stylistic elements carrying over from the wheellock era, but more germane to the students of early Ottoman firearms is the long "bridge" linking the cock pivot screw to the priming pan. This is a characteristic of virtually all miquelets made in the Ottoman Empire, the Caucasus, and Iran down to the 19th cent but is something seldom seen on their European antecedents, except for a handful of published, early specimens.

Other characteristics in common with the later (and much smaller) locks made in the Balkans are triangular jaws clamping the flint in place, and an excessively stiff mainspring. Mature versions of European locks (whether Spanish, Neapolitan, Portuguese, or their German imitations) have narrower jaws and a much more efficient mechanical design using a lighter mainspring but resulting in faster lock time due to reduced inertia in the moving parts.

[Philip]

Just to add some context, here is a mature example of a miquelet lock (in this case from the Eibar region of Spain, ca. 1800-1810, to compare with the early example in the preceding post.

Note that the "bridge" connecting the cock pivot and the pan is absent, and the cock jaws no longer have the triangular "duck foot" shape seen on earlier wheellocks. In contrast, Eastern locks remained extremely conservative, and although some are quite lavishly decorated, little or no effort seems to have been made to improve their mechanical design, or build quality, to keep up with Western versions of essentially the same style of lock.