Loaded Flintlock - problem or not?

[fernando]

Originally Posted by CutlassCollector

...I have read that these were sold to many European countries and it's interesting that yours also has a British proof as Fernando K confirms...

Apparently you misunderstood Fernando K, maybe due to translation issues .
What he means to say and i confirm is that, a letter under a crown was the Liege inspection mark, the letter being the initial of the assigned inspector.
Later they changed the crown to an asterik, to avoid the punction being confused with the London Viewed mark, namely in cases where the initial was that of inspector Mr. V something.

I would say that, in the case of Belgium guns being exported to London under official contracts, those would eventualy be subject to local (re) proof tests. In such case what you would have was the Birmingham or London (crest) proof marks and not the Viewed inspection punction ... or something like that .

Maybe this chart will put some light to it:

http://damascus-barrels.com/Belgian_All_Proofmarks.html