SVL - Suhl arsenal muskets, ca. 1590-1610, and their markings

[Matchlock]

Hi there,


A very large number of recorded gun makers marks comprises barrel smiths, lock makers and gun stock makers. Usually, the latter also sold completely stocked guns in their workshops.


About 60 to 70 per cent of the barrels of the literally thousands of all types of arsenal/'military' firearms researched by and inspected by the author over almost four decades were struck with marks that all point out as the provenance of their manufacturing the both important and well-known area around the town of Suhl, Thuringia, Germany.


Today, there are still many thousands of original and completely preserved muskets, which are preserved either on exhibitions or in the reserve collections, generally called Depots in Germanic conuntries.
Almost all over the Western World, and in the North Eastern regions of Europe, there are hundreds of museums and private collections holding those muskets.
Moreover, in most of those collections, both public and private, there are also still preserved large numbers of fragments and parts of such firearms, like detached barrels and locks, or even stocks.


One of most probably less than ten private collections known all together is the collection of the author.

More than 30 years ago, he started building up a collection.
From the very start, and based on more than ten years of best possible scholarly and academic research, and studying many hundreds of exactly the types of firearms he wished to concentrate on, as well as all possible kinds of their contemporary accouterments - provided that they were all strictly related to the respective firearms. He also strictly defined the limits and boundaries of that collection in planning.

Of course, he started out building a collection of many hundreds of books and catalogs containing photos - not just line drawings, as he came to decide very soon that those drawings usually were far from being exact enough in actually representingall the correctans respective details that he had decidecd were not only necessary but just the main prerequisite and highly academic fundament of the collection he was aiming to establish.

He planned his collection to comprise not one single item that would not be indispensable to both represent and explain all possible aspects and questions that attendants of that collection in planning might ask when confronted with the results of what he had chosen to include within that ensemble.
To the author, and prospective collector, the main reason for going that straight was that, after attending hundreds of museums and private collections, as well as viewings at auction houses, he had come to the conclusion that not a single one of them all could present what had set his mind on.

According to his plans, his collection should be able to provide all sorts of answers to all possible questions that could and might by asked by the attendants.

After some 35 years of hardest discipline in studying, researching and documenting, especially by taking more than 280,000 analog photos of such items in all sorts of mueseums, collections and auction houses, he finally, as well as both luckily and happily, he succeeeded on forming what now can be righteously defined as representing the doubtlessly unparalleled standard of the unique ensemble which is

The Michael Trömner Collection
of
EARLIEST GERMAN, MAINLY BAVARIAN, AND TOGETHER WITH SOME AUSTRIAN AND SWISS INSTANCES OF ARSENAL FIREARMS; INCLUDING ALL SORTS OF ACCOUTERMENTS, AND ALL ITEMS PRESERVED IN OPTIMUM ORIGINAL QUALITY, AND RANGING FROM THE BEGINNINGS IN CA. 1360 UNTIL THE END OF THE MATCHLOCK ERA IN CA. 1720,
comprising a total of some 350 objects.


It now provides a synopsis of items that fulfill all the prerequisites and fundamental standards of both singular cultural and historical importance, nationally as well as internationally, by uniting several dated pieces, among them

- the second oldest known dated haquebut barrel, 1481, and also being of local historical importance for having been used in the famous firing down at the city of Passau, Lower Bavaria, from the Fortress (Feste) Oberhaus, the summer of 1482; moreover, it is the earliest recorded specimen of any kind of weapon struck with the earliest Munich city mark, the Münchner Kindl (the Munich Monk).


- the only recorded wall gun mounted with a bronze barrel and retaining its original oaken full stock and wooden ramrod with threaded iron finial, and preserved completely with its original scourer; Nuremberg, ca. 1515-20.


- the only recorded small hand cannon retaining its original limewood full stock, completely encompassing the barrel from all sides, and only allowing a small circular zone of access for an igniting iron to the touch hole, which is fully surrounded by wood, proving visible results of being fired many times by large areas of charring of the wood all around the touch hole on the top of the octagonal barrel; moreover, it is the only known small hand cannon with the barrel attached by two iron bands, and mounted with a small movable ring at the flat rear end of the stock; Bavaria, 2nd half 15th century to ca. 1500.



- the only Tarrasbüchse or Schlänglein, Nuremberg, ca. 1520-25 (era of the Peasant Wars), re-using a small Nuremberg founded bronze haquebut barrel struck with the coat-of-arms if the Counts of Giech, Schloss Thurnau near Bayreuth, Northern Bavaria, co

-



- an extremely fine piece dated 1602 on the hexagonal (!) barrel, mounted on the stock with a central top edge. In weaponry, the German term of this extremely rare sort of finest made barrels is Schweinsrückenlauf (a barrel shaped like a hog's back).

This musket dated 1602 ranges among a very small group of the world's topmost pieces of the most refined sort of 'military' long gu-ns produced and marked by Suhl workshops from ca. 1590 to 1610, which means ca. 1600. It is a relatively large number of muskets mounted with barrels struck with an unusually comprehensive pack of historically recorded facts, allowing experts to assign that close date line to this limited group.



Those facts quite often comprise:



I. Barrel marks


I.1. Marks primarily struck:
in the read hot iron, and by the barrel smiths - before the barrels were sent to be proofed

They are easily identifiable by being clearly struck deepest, meaning struck in the iron powerfully while still in red heat; many of both the initials and symbols of these stamps have been identified and assigned to Suhl workshops; a name and symbol often identified is KLETT, meaning burdock



I.2. Marks secondarily struck:

This group mainly comprises the marks of dealers, mostly also identifiable, and very often belonging to members of the well-known KLETT family, too



I.2.1. Suhl proof marks

I.2.2. Proof marks on barrels

SVL and the hen, the symbol of the Countship (German: Grafschaft) of Suhl, Thuringia, Eastern Germany







II. Lock marks

II.1. Proof marks on locks




II.2.Proof marks on buttstocks Largely unknown, even to most experts, because very rare to find, are instances of SVL proof marks struck on the buttstocks.
They mostly seem to have been reserved to thevery small number of elite class muskets.

The most specific exemptions comprise a very limited number of arsenal type muskets belonging to the upper elite class, with most of them mounted with a combined whellock and matchlock mechanism.

The top elite class category, though, was reserved to arsenal muskets with both their beechwood buttstocks and fore stocks carved with the characteristic Suhl foliage pattern, and additionally set with carved rondels showing portraits of profiled male heads wearing helmets, morions or burgonets, and all of them all'antica.
Of course, these finest few of all arsenal type guns usually also combine most of the characteristic features summarized in paragraphs

mounted with either a machlock mechanis - and a small group of wheellock

By the end of the 16th century, the most common wood used for stocking arsenal/'military' on the European Continent was red beech.




III. Dates struck

Quite often, barrels of such high-quality arsenal muskets are dated, meaning that a date was secondarily struck, and after the barrels had both passed the proof
and had been polished/finished on the upper side not covered by the stock;
the underside of barrels mounted on 'military'/arsenal muskets wasalways left in the rough, and blued by the fire at ca. 260-300 degrees centigrade.

In all his research concerning arsenal firearms, the author mostly concentrated on long guns and arquebuses, which, by ca. 1600, usually should be termed carbines and were part of the equipment of the cavalry.