Djezail With East India company lock

RDGAC · 9th May 2012, 11:54 AM

My guess is that both locks are locally made; I don't think the quality looks high enough for a contemporary British lock, to be perfectly honest, though I'm always prepared to be wrong. The names on both are engraved none too carefully, and as AJ1356 remarks, the numbers used for the date look suspect. Also, I can't seem to find a "Loder" listed as a manufacturer of locks in my (very limited) reference material, though there is a Richard Loader working - in 1699. Having said that, the flaunched heart and date look better on #2, and I'd suggest that the cock is a replacement (judging by the peened-over tumbler square). So perhaps that 'un's the real article, with a replacement cock?

I'd also conjecture that the lower gun has the older stock - there looks to be hand polish there, and the cracks look good and nasty, the result of repeated hefty recoil. Pity someone's rubbed it up a bit vigorously. Oddly, both barrels could be old; ISTR that the more ornamented the barrel, the more likely it is to be old, and the chiselled muzzles are both similar (#1 especially) to one of mine, which is currently thought of as an Ottoman barrel of the 19th Century.

Not the most helpful chap, am I?

9th May 2012, 11:54 AM	#7
RDGAC Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: York, UK Posts: 167	My guess is that both locks are locally made; I don't think the quality looks high enough for a contemporary British lock, to be perfectly honest, though I'm always prepared to be wrong. The names on both are engraved none too carefully, and as AJ1356 remarks, the numbers used for the date look suspect. Also, I can't seem to find a "Loder" listed as a manufacturer of locks in my (very limited) reference material, though there is a Richard Loader working - in 1699. Having said that, the flaunched heart and date look better on #2, and I'd suggest that the cock is a replacement (judging by the peened-over tumbler square). So perhaps that 'un's the real article, with a replacement cock? I'd also conjecture that the lower gun has the older stock - there looks to be hand polish there, and the cracks look good and nasty, the result of repeated hefty recoil. Pity someone's rubbed it up a bit vigorously. Oddly, both barrels could be old; ISTR that the more ornamented the barrel, the more likely it is to be old, and the chiselled muzzles are both similar (#1 especially) to one of mine, which is currently thought of as an Ottoman barrel of the 19th Century. Not the most helpful chap, am I?