CIRCA 1625

Details

A Very Rare 8-Bore 'English-Lock' Military Musket
Circa 1625
Converted from snaphaunce, with two-stage sighted-barrel, the breech section octagonal then sixteen-sided and fitted with U-shaped back-sight at the rear, plain tang, flat lock retained by three side-nails and with separate pan and applied buffer for the cock, the trigger moving on a pin above the tail of the lock-plate, walnut full stock carved with wheat-ear decoration behind the barrel tang and with bellied 'fish-tail' butt branded with the initials 'TR' on the right side and with a star-shaped design of punched circles on each side, plain iron mounts, and later iron-tipped ramrod (stock with minor chips and cracks, and some repairs)
43in. (109.2cm.) barrel

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 74, plate 11

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

The provenance given by Neal and Back is 'the Ellingborough Heirlooms'

This pre-Civil War musket is of an even scarcer type than the somewhat later published examples of, for example, Oxford Town Hall, Apethorpe Manor, Littlecote House, and Dunster Castle

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