Kubur Questions

[Rick]

No thoughts on the Maker's stamping ?

Norman, I'm not sure about the figure being a 4; it is far from clear and very light; in fact it looks more like a 4 in the picture than under magnification by eye .

Serbian; thanks Oliver .

The only other weapon passed down from him was one of those wedding nimchas from N. Africa .

[Multumesc]

Beautiful gun !!!

[Kubur]

Hi Rick,
You are super lucky, I found all the informations about your gun.
Will post them this week end!
Kubur

[Rick]

Oboy !!
Thank you in advance .

[Kubur]

Ok, it's just an abstract of what I read.
Ulcinj was a town to the South of Montenegro and an Albanian centre of pistols production. The town had trade links with Egypt and Tunisia.
Albanesi traders and merceneries worked notably with egypt, Tunisa and Algeria
and participated to the diffusion of Balkans arms in the Ottoman empire.
Ulcinj was also an haven for corsairs from North Africa.
They decorated their gun barrels with animal and humans figures, they even engraved their Italians gun locks from Brescia with figures.
This decoration was made to please the taste of North Africans and mixed populations of Albanians living in Africa.
Reference: Elgood, Arms of Greece, mainly p. 39-40
I think this information is useful not only for your gun, but also to understand the spread of Ottoman arms in North Africa...

[Rick]

Marvelous, and I thank you Kubur .
Since the only other arm that came down to us from him was a 'Wedding Nimcha' ; I would think that this places it as being acquired in Algeria or Morocco .
Now I'll have to get the courage to remove the lock and look for marks .

[rickystl]

Originally Posted by Rick

Marvelous, and I thank you Kubur .
Since the only other arm that came down to us from him was a 'Wedding Nimcha' ; I would think that this places it as being acquired in Algeria or Morocco .
Now I'll have to get the courage to remove the lock and look for marks .

Hi Rick.
What a beautiful - and interesting pistol. At first glance, the overall proportions of the gun look just like a typical Ottoman/Balkan made kubur pistol. The lock style, butt cap, trigger guard, etc. But Kubur, above, is probably correct. The last time I saw the facial impression on the breech of a barrel was on a Greek/Rasak long gun. The Greeks were also fond of making their triggers in the form of humans. Most of the relief chiseling on the barrels that I've seen were on Ottomah/Balkan guns, but done in a more generic matter such as the barrel on the Ottoman Knee Pistol below.
If you have a chance, would you run a piece of wire or something down the ramrod channel and see if the hole goes all the way back towards the breech? Or does the wire travel only a couple inches past the lowere ramrod thimble? It would be interesting to know since it looks like it was made for a full length ramrod vs a false ramrod. Thanks.
Rick.