A RARE 38-BORE TURKISH OR RUSSIAN SHAPHANCE GUN

Details

A RARE 38-BORE TURKISH OR RUSSIAN SHAPHANCE GUN

CIRCA 1650

With four-stage sighted barrel fluted on the breech section, with shaped muzzle, and brass back-sight, slender lock with external springs and chiselled details, the swivelling pan-cover with pierced circular thumbpiece, figured walnut full stock of characteristic form with fluted fore-end and slender butt of oval section inlaid on the left side with arabesques, flowers and foliage in white horn, and with a border of running dog-tooth design in front of the horn butt-plate, later wooden patch-box cover with fluted iron retaining bracket, two shaped brass barrel bands, horn fore-end cap, and later ramrod (the cock and trigger English 18th Century replacements)
41in. barrel

Lot Essay

Cf. a similar gun (now Tower Armouries H.M. Tower of London, Class 26/179F) illustrated and described (as Ottoman Turkish) in Philippe Missilier and Howard Ricketts, Splendeur des Armes Orientales, Paris, 4 May-31 July 1988, No. 27, pp. 30-31

Locks of this type are referred to in M. Thierbach, Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Hardfeuerwaffen, pp. 52-3, fig. 109

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