A Very Rare Nuremberg Arquebus 'Bronze'/Brass Barrel, ca. 1500-10

[Matchlock]

More close-ups.

[Matchlock]

A supplement to post # 17:

The Warsaw tiller arquebus can also be closely dated to ca. 1500; one basic fact, though by far not the only one, is that the swiveling pan cover is fixed by a screw - the earliest known use of a screw on any firearm.
As I stated here earlier, screws - though well-known - are not recorded to have come into use on items involving mechanics before the end of the 15th c., such as the Maximilian tournament breast plates (Stechzeuge) of ca. 1490 and 1495 preserved in the Vienna Armory.
Their screw heads are of early, highly figured shape.

Interestingly enough, screw heads on finely made wheellocks still retained that Gothic shape up to the mid-16th c., as can be seen on a mechanism dated 1551, also in Vienna; author's photos.


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

Landsknecht arkebuses with brass barrels, the stocks stained black, similar to the sample preserved in St. Petersburg (see post # 2).
Albrecht Altdorfer, 1513-15, Schweizer Krieg, from the Triumphal Procession (Triumphzug) for the Emperor Maximilian I.

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[Matchlock]

The next generation of Landsknecht arquebuses, and at the same time the last employing brass barrels, early 1520's, the multiple-staged barrel with long, accentuated muzzle section, the parts of the snap-tinderlock not yet united on a lock plate but separately nailed to the stock. Only the serpentine is shown to be mounted on a small plate; the cocked serpentine against which a long spring acted was mostly triggered by a right-hand side lateral push button. Only one arquebus lying on the ground is shown to feature a long tiller trigger.
Most stocks are depicted plain and undyed but one is represented to be painted red.
The length of typically thick and early match cord was only used to light a small piece of tinder that was placed in a tube at the top of the serpentine and was probably replaced before firing the next shot.

Please note the earliest bandoliers with small tinned-iron powder containers.

From a series of tapestries depicting scenes from the Battle of Pavia, 24 February 1525, preserved in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples. They were woven in Brussels workshops in the late 1520's, after desings by Bernard van Orley.

Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

A woodcut from Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Vier Bücher der Ritterschaft (fol. 170), published in 1511, of an arquebusier holding his arquebus with the barrel down.

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[Matchlock]

Brass-barreled snap-tinderlock arquebuses, from an illustrated inventory of the 'Maximilian' armories, ca. 1502; BSB Munich, cod. icon. 222, fol. 114.

Two stocks are shown painted red, and the tinder serpentines are incorrectly depicted to be mounted on the barrels.

As the mechanical lock parts must have been nailed or clamped to the stock, they seem to have been triggered by a right-hand side lateral push button, most probably located in front of the serpentine and activated by a finger of the left hand.

Some of the wooden ramrods are depicted to have an iron finial, most probably threaded for a worm and scourer - just the way they were made for 'service' use until the early 18th c.


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[Matchlock]

Author's collection.

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