Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

twines · 14th November 2023, 02:45 PM

Thanks for the responses. I am begining to get the history of the gun and it's pretty neet. I am copying a response from Christian Wellard from the Royal Armouries. So far I still believe the gun started life as a 1815 Dutch musket. It was either rifled or rebarreled by Belgians . (hence the GB) Christian suggest I reach out to National Military Museum of the Netherlands. I will do that later today and let you all know what I find out. To the gentleman who suggest the CS is Confederate States, I could only wish. I have recieved mixed opinions on these guns being imported by both North and South in large quanity. I am leaning toward they were not or at least not in significant quanity. Anyway here is the response from Christian Wellard

Dear Tom,

Thanks for bearing with us. I’ve had a look at our best resource for these Dutch arms (B J Martens & G de Vries, Nederlandse Vuurwapens 1813-1866), though it is in Dutch so anything I’m bringing from that should be taken with a bit of salt just in case. It appears this conversion process was begun around 1841, and it seems to have been a bit of a struggle for the Dutch government to find a suitable company to actually carry out the process. Malherbe of Liege was a potential candidate, but Martens and de Vries note that there was opposition to using them within the Dutch War Department. It didn’t help their situation that the Liege gun industry had become such a major supplier, and of course as of 1830 Belgium was no longer part of the Netherlands. The book notes that although records of how the company was chosen were lost, but it ended up being a Maastricht businessman named Petrus Regout who managed to secure the Dutch government’s approval. The parts for conversion were made in Liege and then brought to Maastricht, where the conversions were made, starting in January 1842.

The markings on your gun are more difficult to work out, as some of them don’t appear in the book, so I’m afraid I can’t be of the greatest amount of help here. That said, the apparent broad arrow mark on the barrel isn’t at all in the British military style. Rather, alongside the other tally marks nearby it, this looks like it may have been an assembly mark. Makers back in those days would often mark up individual parts with incised lines in various patterns, in order to keep track of which parts go together whilst working on multiple guns at the same time.

I think your best bet at this stage for the markings would be to get in touch with the Nationaal Militair Museum in the Netherlands. They’ll be the best-placed team to help work out the rest of the details, and their website’s here: https://www.nmm.nl/en/

I hope that helps, and wish you luck finding out more about your gun.

Kind regards,

Christian Wellard

Curatorial Assistant

14th November 2023, 02:45 PM	#9
twines Member Join Date: Oct 2023 Posts: 3	Thanks for the responses. I am begining to get the history of the gun and it's pretty neet. I am copying a response from Christian Wellard from the Royal Armouries. So far I still believe the gun started life as a 1815 Dutch musket. It was either rifled or rebarreled by Belgians . (hence the GB) Christian suggest I reach out to National Military Museum of the Netherlands. I will do that later today and let you all know what I find out. To the gentleman who suggest the CS is Confederate States, I could only wish. I have recieved mixed opinions on these guns being imported by both North and South in large quanity. I am leaning toward they were not or at least not in significant quanity. Anyway here is the response from Christian Wellard Dear Tom, Thanks for bearing with us. I’ve had a look at our best resource for these Dutch arms (B J Martens & G de Vries, Nederlandse Vuurwapens 1813-1866), though it is in Dutch so anything I’m bringing from that should be taken with a bit of salt just in case. It appears this conversion process was begun around 1841, and it seems to have been a bit of a struggle for the Dutch government to find a suitable company to actually carry out the process. Malherbe of Liege was a potential candidate, but Martens and de Vries note that there was opposition to using them within the Dutch War Department. It didn’t help their situation that the Liege gun industry had become such a major supplier, and of course as of 1830 Belgium was no longer part of the Netherlands. The book notes that although records of how the company was chosen were lost, but it ended up being a Maastricht businessman named Petrus Regout who managed to secure the Dutch government’s approval. The parts for conversion were made in Liege and then brought to Maastricht, where the conversions were made, starting in January 1842. The markings on your gun are more difficult to work out, as some of them don’t appear in the book, so I’m afraid I can’t be of the greatest amount of help here. That said, the apparent broad arrow mark on the barrel isn’t at all in the British military style. Rather, alongside the other tally marks nearby it, this looks like it may have been an assembly mark. Makers back in those days would often mark up individual parts with incised lines in various patterns, in order to keep track of which parts go together whilst working on multiple guns at the same time. I think your best bet at this stage for the markings would be to get in touch with the Nationaal Militair Museum in the Netherlands. They’ll be the best-placed team to help work out the rest of the details, and their website’s here: https://www.nmm.nl/en/ I hope that helps, and wish you luck finding out more about your gun. Kind regards, Christian Wellard Curatorial Assistant