An early cannon identified

Ed · 16th September 2008, 01:51 PM

Last year I saw this cannon tube on ebay, of all places.

The description was to the effect that it-

-was French
-might be a signal cannon
-was "at least from the 19th c., perhaps later"

Now, this was not an area of close study for me but the lanky profile of this weapon said "earlier" earlier like 16th c. I really had no idea.

I prevailed in the auction and won the piece for around $1900 (!). it's statistics are:
Length 45"
Depth of bore 40"
Bore 1.25 "
Weight 38.5 lbs

As fortune would have it, I had recently made the acquaintance of Matchlock (not his real name

) thru the sainted Klaus Leibnitz (more on him in a bit) and had obtained and shipped off a pattern for the casting of accurate copies of the Loshult Gun (more later) for a project that Matchlock was pursuing in Germany. Old Matchlock is a world class authority on early firearms and I submitted it to him for his opinion.

I'll let him pick the story up from here.

16th September 2008, 01:51 PM	#1
Ed Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 237	An early cannon identified Last year I saw this cannon tube on ebay, of all places. The description was to the effect that it- -was French -might be a signal cannon -was "at least from the 19th c., perhaps later" Now, this was not an area of close study for me but the lanky profile of this weapon said "earlier" earlier like 16th c. I really had no idea. I prevailed in the auction and won the piece for around $1900 (!). it's statistics are: Length 45" Depth of bore 40" Bore 1.25 " Weight 38.5 lbs As fortune would have it, I had recently made the acquaintance of Matchlock (not his real name ) thru the sainted Klaus Leibnitz (more on him in a bit) and had obtained and shipped off a pattern for the casting of accurate copies of the Loshult Gun (more later) for a project that Matchlock was pursuing in Germany. Old Matchlock is a world class authority on early firearms and I submitted it to him for his opinion. I'll let him pick the story up from here.