A Good and Rare Austrian Combined Wheellock and Matchlock Musket, ca. 1665-70

[Matchlock]

Another piece from the same series, misdated as 'ca. 1630', but actually ca. 1670, sold in a German auction.
Heavily cleaned overall, the wood roobbed of all its original varnish and inappropriately polished like that of a sporting gun.

The Suhl control and dealer's marks clearly visible, the deeply struck mark on the right flat of the octagonal barrel section is that of the barrel smith.

m

[Matchlock]

Another musket from the same series, preserved in the Army Museum Dresden and combined with a contemporary military plug bayonet. The upper ramrod pipe is missing.

Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

I bought those in April 1988 and took the photos in August 1990.
Both bear the same Suhl maker's and control barrel marks and are almost one of a kind, apart from some minor differences due to workmanship.
Mine is the one with the pyrite in the dog jaws. I still know where its companion is today.

Those combined mechanism muskets represented 'high tech' 350 years ago and played a decisive role on the Habsburg side in the late Turks Wars and the siege of Vienna in 1683.

The lower six close-ups in the second post, of the barrel marks (on the left flat the Suhl hen with the letter S, in the center the marker's mark initialed 'SI' over a flower, and on the right the SVL stamp, the first and latter both acting as Suhl proof control marks), of the lock area (before I had found a piece of pyrites) and of the interior views of the lock mechanism, are from my musket.

Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

The remaining photos.

m

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Matchlock

... I still know where its companion is today. ...

Ah, this high tech stuff; who in hell would be interested in having those ?
You can tell the owner of that twin specimen to send it over; being such a nice guy, i am willing to find a space in my flat to keep it; maybe even get a stand to display it ... in the middle of my living room
Don't worry about the missing pyrites; i have a few spare .

[Matchlock]

Hi 'Nando,

I'm afriad he won't deaccession it ...

Anyhow, here is another piece in a private collection.

Best,
Michl

[Matchlock]

A great number of these, maybe as many as 100 samples (!), the specimen in my collection and this here in discussion included, were sold illegally from the reserve collection of the fortress Hohensalzburg, Austria, in 1988, together with a tremendous number of other early weapons and accouterments. The then director was of course involved and shot himself in his bureau a few years later when the scandal came up.
I bought my sample from a German dealer in April 1988.

All the Salzburg pieces had drilled buttstocks, where they were brutally fixed to the exhibition walls by screws in the 1880's. I have seen old b/w photographs in the hallway of the administration there - museums! You can still see the hole in the buttstock of the specimen dicussed here.

Telling by the shape of its beechwood buttstock, with all varnish and patina washed off with lye, which hardly shows any 'bellied' form any longer, it should be dated to the late 17th c., ca. 1680-90, thus being one of the latest of its type ever made. The overall length was standardized to 151 cm, the bore 19 mm, the weight ca. 6.5 kg. Almost all these guns are of German (Suhl) production, and so is this one; I have only seen two or three of that type with barrel marks of Zella (near Suhl, Thuringia).

The matchlock serpentine makes two facts evident: that the spring is loose or broken (its socket, which I can identify on the print, was just put into the lock plate, mostly without riveting), and that the match holder does not belong to this gun originally because it is bent too little in order to reach the ignition pan with its jaws.

The image I scanned from the Fischer, Lucerne, catalog of June 29, 1990, lot 8605; it was at that time when these combination-lock muskets were offered by literally all the dealers and nearly in every auction sale as they had come in such large numbers. They are almost as rare to find nowadays as they were before the Salzburg story took place.
BTW, just another of those stories that make collecting weapons so spicy ...

Another Salzburg combined wheellock and matchlock musket, with the hole in its butt badly closed, I showed in post #4 above.

My two long Austrian pikes that I mounted crossed-over beneath the ceiling of my weapons room, 4.60 m and 4.70 m long repectively and retaining their original blued iron spikes and long straps, as well as their original ash hafts, also were deaccessioned from the fortress Hohensalzburg, and there were hundreds of them!!! I bought mine at Christie's London-South Kensington auction, when I was there on September 19, 1990.


Best,
Michael

[Fernando K]

Matchlock Estimate:

Question from ignorance. The trigger moves the two systems simultaneously, or either of them first? in any case, the clamp after the wick prevents pyrites and reverse acting. I see a single trigger ....

Affectionately. Fernando K

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Matchlock

... The then director was of course involved and shot himself in his bureau a few years later when the scandal came up ....

If he at least used an early wheellock example, to make it a honorable gesture