Hand Cannon ?

[Rick]

Is it real and old ?

[fernando]

Tricky stuff .
One i a million is (perhaps) the real thing .
It looks like it has been rusted in a rush ... i don't know .
I wouldn't dare diving into these waters, myself ... and i love hand cannons

... Michl ?

[Rick]

Originally Posted by fernando

Tricky stuff .
One i a million is (perhaps) the real thing .
It looks like it has been rusted in a rush ... i don't know .
I wouldn't dare diving into these waters, myself ... and i love hand cannons

... Michl ?

Well, I will tell you Fernando, that this was by no means a bank-breaking purchase .

I can't imagine someone going to so much trouble for such little money .

So, if it is a Fabrication Moderne I will not wince .
It will be fun on the 4th of July with a small firecracker dropped down the barrel .

These are found buried in the fields all over Europe; no ?

[Rick]

With a little olive oil dressing, Fernando ?
Perhaps this piece could be a lesson in how to detect a Fake ?





If it is ....


I would love to be enlightened .
Comments please .

[Rick]

So .
Chinese Gonne ....
Who else ??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNXkU...feature=fvwrel

[David]

Is yours the same size as the one in the viddy?

[fernando]

Oh, the olive oil gave it a new dressing; quite appealing ... no kiding .
Yes, i knew; Chinese ... even also Vietnamese, if i am in my regular senses.
These things, being so rustic and perpetuously time lining, have a very thin border between real and replicas.
Wo am i to tell the difference ? .
I am glad it didn't cost "the eyes of your face"; this way you are covered .

[Rick]

No weeping, it cost me the price of two beers and a Burger .
It will be a great conversation piece, Fernando .

David, I believe it is about the same size as the one in the vid .

[Matchlock]

Hi Rick,


Your three-barreled handgonne is a hand cannon, no doubt about that, but it is obviously what most experts classify as Indonesian or Indochinese, and most probably 18th-19th c.
Please see

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...331660&page=27

In my recent thread

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15577

I tried to point out best I as I could the decisive differences in make between 'European' and 'Oriental' handgonnes.

Unfortunately, nobody has dared to respond so far.


Summing up the criteria I would say that 'the Oriental' makers generally adopted 500 to 600 year-old Northern European gun designs and have carried on building them for centuries with only very minor differences (e.g. both Indian and Japanese matchlocks are stylistically based on 500-year-old Germanic samples and their designs have remainded virtually unchanged).
In my eyes, the basic criteria of identifying a piece as 'Germanic' and 'Gothic' are a more solid make and the patina, though the latter point can be tricky indeed. The smoother and rounder the whole item appears and the smaller, beveled and 'rounded' the reinforcing rings are the more 'Oriental' the thing is.

Genuinely early 'Germanic' barrels characteristically feature heavily swamped breech and muzzle sections, noticeably tapering in between. The plainer and more uniform the barrels are the 'younger' the piece normally is.

In more than thirty years of closest possible study, I have not seen one single three- or four-barreled handgonne, either of wrought iron or of cast bronze, that I would have accepted as truly Germanic - and Gothic.

The first scan attached, of a wrought-iron three-barrel gonne, is from Howard L. Blackmore's still valuable and recommended (cheap!) paperback Firearms, London, Dutton Vista, 1964, p. 26.

The second, of a cast-bronze three-barrel item, is from Hermann Historica's auction of March 19, 1983; the piece was labeled as 'German, 15th c.' and fetched 10,500 DM plus 23 per cent commission.

At Christie's sale on November 20, 1991, I bought a lot of two wrought-iron gonnes 'of archaic type', one with four and the other with three barrels, both labeled as Chinese, for 550 GBP plus commission (lot 133). They retained a portion of their original hafts each which I had examined closely at the Munich Ethnographic Museum, and it turned out that they were of a certain type of Indochinese hardwood. The iron patina was really charming though and the make of the three-barreled item looked a lot like 'Germanic' and 'Gothic' as well. The examination finished, I sold them for what they obviously were: Indochinese. As they were the only samples known to retain their original (though shortened) hafts I got more than I had paid.

As your gonne was not that costly I guess it is no doubt an interesting item.


Best,
Michael

[junker]

you can also look in the ethnographic discussion forum. just search for chinese firearm. 11339
dirk

[fernando]

Originally Posted by junker

you can also look in the ethnographic discussion forum. just search for chinese firearm. 11339
dirk

Here it is:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...hinese+firearm

[Matchlock]

Thank you, Dirk,

For this link.

It offers very good material indeed.

Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

This is the only known piece of period artwork depicting a German three-barreled handgonne or, strictly speaking, arquebus: the stock painted green and mounted with a snap-tinderlock that could of course only ignite the pan of the barrel mounted to the right; the other two barrels are equipped with central touch holes denoting that they were designed to be ignited manually. A piece of tinder is shown fixed between the jaws of the snapping serpentine cocked ready to fire.

Watercolor by Jörg Kölderer, ca. 1507, from one of the armory inventories of Maximilian I, who became ' Elected Roman Emperor' in 1508.

Please note that this is the earliest (!) known period representation of a 'Germanic' multi-barreled arquebus or short 'long gun' while most of the types discussed above are claimed to be '15th century' or earlier!
Four-barreled guns are depicted as well, most interestingly with the barrels pointing both forward and to the rear.

It is true that the very same book depicts other three- and four-barreled guns as well (attached at bottom) but they look completely different from the ones discussed in this thread.


m

[Rick]

Thank you Michael, 'Nando, et al !

I must have been sleeping back in 2010 when this was discussed .
Apologies for not looking in our own archives first...

Rick

[Matchlock]

Don't worry, Rick,

That's what we are here for - somebody will look somewhere hopefully!

Best,
m

[Rick]

Bless you all .

Rick