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Originally Posted by katana
I recently contact the Lancer Museum requesting information on the various markings and they have kindly replied 
"....... Thank you for your email. It seems to us that the '17' is a Regimental mark and would refer to the 17th Lancers. The small letters could be SQN and
refer to Squadron. '05' & '90' could be dates when repairs were undertaken.
'T.P.' could be TP for Troop and would be with a letter such as 'A' or 'B',
etc. ....."
Link to 17th Lancers ....... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_Lancers
It would seem that these Lances may have seen / been at several historical battles
Best
David |
Hi there .. I hate to ruin the theory of the number between the Crown & E as being the date , but it is not. It is the Enfield Inspectors number . Each Inspector at Enfield had a personal number and when he was satisfied as to the serviceability of of piece of equipment , his number the plus crown & E ( for Enfield ) was stamped on it. It is possible to identify the names of the individual inspectors provided one has a date of manufacture of the item . British weapons of this period were always dated in the following fashion : '6/79' for June 1879 for example. Enfield Inspectors also checked equipment made by private contractors & forign manufacturers for Service use and indeed if the output was large enough would actually be based at the factory ... in this case although the Inspectors number would remain the same there would be no 'E' .. instead there would be another designated code letter for the factory eg 'B' BSA , 'X' London Small Arms, 'S' Solingen , 'L' Liege etc
Hope this helps .