Dating Earliest Barrels: the Importance of the Position of the Touch Hole

[Matchlock]

Great image, 'Nando, thank you!


It looks as if the bore of your barrel has not been drilled out.

Could you perhaps take its weight?

I added pictures of my barrel with eight alternatingly broad and narrow flats, and retaining one of its originally two iron bands; I will take its weight tomorrow.


Best,
Michl

[Matchlock]

- also from Johann Hartlieb's Kriegsbuch, 1411: the use of superimposed loads! for such guns, fol. 11r

- my three Nuremberg haquebut barrels from the Fortress Oberhaus, Passau, all preserved in pristine condition, retaining their original red-lead minium paint beneath a later coat of black arsenal lacquer;
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t-iron+barrels
from top:
- ca. 1460-70
- dated 1481, the world's second oldest dated barrel, struck with the earliest known Munich town mark, the Münchner Kindl (the Munich Kid), according to Erasmus Grasser's design of 1477
- ca. 1490-1500, from one of the Maximilian Tyrolean arsenals, with huge touch hole and 'Maximilian' style crown's head muzzle section accentutated by a roped frieze; the original rear socket for a tiller stock shortened and prepared for a full stock
- another, from the very same Nuremberg series, retaining its original socket and octagonal oak tiller stock, preserved in the reserve collection of the Gäubodenmuseum Straubing, Lower Bavaria

[Matchlock]

On we go with attachments to post #1:


- my highly important historical Passau/Munich barrel dated 1481, with the oldest known fully developed block rear sight, and struck with the earliest known Munich town mark, the Münchner Kindl, according to Erasmus Grasser's design of 1477; underneath a black coat of 17th or 18th c. arsenal lacquer this, like all three of my Passau barrels, retains its original Gothic red lead minium paint! Please note the bell-mouthed muzzle.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=1481

What is most interesting about this and two other historical pieces bearing the same date and still preserved in Passau: together with others (a fourth barrel struck with the date 1481 is preserved in the arsenal of the Fortress Coburg, Northern Bavaria), they were bought by the Passau arsenal in the Fortress Oberhaus, situated high above the city of Passau and never taken, in 1481 when two rivaling candidates, Georg von Hessler and Friedrich Mauerkircher, ran on the Passau prince-archbishopship. In 1482, these haquebuts saw service when parts of the city of Passau lay under heavy fire from the Fortress Oberhaus! And one of them is in my collection 533 years later - imagine!

[Matchlock]

More close-ups of my 1481 barrel.
This dated piece is an important anchor point for dating barrels of the second half of the 15th c.!

[Matchlock]

Hi 'Nando,


You're right, this a revisit to the Aljubarrota topic, and I have a copy of Prestige de l'armurerie portugaise. La part de Liege in my library.

I also guess I mentioned before that that b/w photo depicted an original round Aljubarrota barrel wrought of wound band iron, but with another barrel, of later, octagonal shape, forced into its muzzle!

I have seen other instances of that kind of curiosity; seems like some hoaxter drove some barrels into each other, partly resulting in seemingly having two touch holes!


I do believe that hand firearms were employed in the Aljubarrota battle; after all, we have records of light firearms for foot soldiers from the City of Perugia in the 1350's.
In any case, barrels stopped being made of band iron in around 1400. In the Musée de l'Armée Paris I photographed a huge wrought-iron cannon barrel of wound band iron (imagine the toil the gunsmiths of that period had!), now standing upright to emphasize its shape, which of course was inspired by architectural columns. It was stylistically identical to the Aljubarrota barrels and featured the same swamped reinforcement of the muzzle area!
It was correctly dated 'ca. 1350' by the museum.


Best,
m

[Matchlock]

Here are the next-in-line attachments to post #1:


On top, an octagonal wrought-iron handgonne barrel with hollowed area around the touch hole, early 15th c., , and
a wrought-iron ring rod tiller haquebut, with pointed hook, ca. 1430-40, both Musée de l'Armée Paris.


Next I wish to introduce a sensational small haquebut of ca. 1450-60 retaining its original larch wood (!) full stock originally painted red all over, both wood and iron. Together with three others, also illustrated in the first image, it was said to come from the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Arsenal) Vienna, in the surroundings of which many pieces were reported to have been found scattered around and were taken by people after an American bomb hit in the eastern wing in 1944.

The four were sold with Hermann Historica, Munich, 31. auction, 14 October 1994.
The measurements of the one on top of the picture of four, the smallest of them all, lot 451:
overall length 104 cm, barrel length 26.5 cm, bore at muzzle 25 mm, narrowing down to ca. 18 mm about 4 cm backwards of the muzzle plane (for gun arrows!), weight ca. 4 kg.

The narrowing bore indicated that that small arquebus (German: Viertelhaken) ws designed to fire gun arrows, mostly incendiary arrows sent flying in a parabola onto the wooden shingle roofs of a besieged town - cf. the Hauslab manuscript, dated 1442, preserved in the Royal Armouries Leeds; I attached two details showing such small arquebuses along with crossbows, firing incendiary arrows.

The slightly downcurved buttstock was drop-shaped like the tiller of a Gothic crossbow, with a narrow ridge on top (see close-up)! On the left rear side, the buttstock was deeply branded with an arsenal mark, the Gothic numeral 4, and incised on the barrel was the Roman cypher VIII, plus an additional magic symbol struck by the barrelsmith: three dots.
The octagonal barrel changed flats at about mid-section, with one edge on top at the slightly swamped muzzle acting as a foresight. The relatively small touch hole with a surrounding slight hollow had a raised fire shield at its rear, behind which there was a v-shaped notch: the earliest predecessor of a rear sight that I have ever noticed Mid-15th c.!
The little straight hook was already wrought integrally, protruding from the forestock, about 4 cm in front of the muzzle, and deeply struck two times with a barrelsmith's mark, an anchor in a shield, on both sides! A very similar mark is seen on the hook of a haquebut still preserved in the Vienna arsenal.

Well, did I buy it? No.
It fetched a tremendous price, much more than the other three haquebuts, which all were just nothing compared to that earliest piece. With an estimate of 10,000 Deutsche Mark, bidding started as high as 17'000 DM. For the whole length of the bidding process, the auctioneer kept staring at me encouraging me to enter the battle, but I just signaled 'no'. Although I was not involved, it went up to 20,000 DM hammer price, plus 23 per cent auction fees. That was about 12,500 euro, and I had been told before that they had a commission bid of 24,000 DM on it, so I first would have had to outbid that.

Why did I restrain myself? Originally, both the barrel and stock of that fascinating little guy were painted completely painted with red lead minium. The armory inventories of Maximilian I depict such guns painted in red and green all over, the basic colors of the Late-Gothic period!
The sad fact was that somebody had used leach to get rid off what he thought was a later coating - resulting in countless remaining speckles of that red paint all over the surfaces of both barrel and stock, and even deep down in the age cracks of the larch wood. It had entered the wormholes, just everywhere. The stock showed the characteristic fine fibrousness of leached wood. That cruel mistreatment just could never be mended, it will always be there.
Poor thing.
I documented it photographically as comprehensively as possible.

Had that piece been preserved in undistorted condition, I would have bought it at that time; it would have been my greatest wish come true. I have thought about it every now and then but I feel I would act the same again. To make sidesteps like that, I've been way too strict in only choosing pieces in optimum condition for more than 30 years of my active collecting life, with having had to renounce on almost everything else. I do not even own a car. Too much money for a ruined item.
But that was one heck of a collector's story.

Now do enjoy the photographs I took, they are of good quality and worth studying.


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

From top to bottom:


Short arquebus operated by two men, aimer and igniter (German: Richt- und Feuerschütze), from cod.man. 3062, dated 1437, Austrian National Library Vienna 2 attachments).


Three illustrations from the Hauslab ms, dated 1442, depicting incendiary arrows fired from crossbows and short arquebuses alike (Roxal Armourires Leeds).


More photos of that early small Viertelhaken for firing gun arrows, ca. 1450-60.
Please note the earliest predecessor of a combined fire shield and rear sight, as well as the touch hole with its hollowed surrounding area.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Matchlock

... Could you perhaps take its weight? ...

This beast weighs 7,4 Kgs. with its 23cms length and 33 m/m bore.