Arquebuses 1460-1480

[Matchlock]

Hi Spiridonov,

As you you, these items retaining their original stocks are almost impossible to find. We know of some 1460-80 haquebuts with their stocks actually retained but of less than five surviving short, portable (h)arquebuses.

The earliest and crudest of them may be a piece at the Pilsen Armory (top).

A second, now at the Royal Armouries Leeds, may be as early as the 1470's-80's (next down in line). The snap tinder mechanism is missing except for the main spring.

Four others, illustrated in Diebold Schilling's Berne Chronicle (1483), seemingly have no surviving syblings; their butt stocks look strikingly modern.

Another actual sample, at the Bavarian Army Museum Ingolstadt, should in my opinion be dated "ca. 1500"; it never had a mechanism. Exactly this type is illustrated in Diebold Schilling's Lucerne Chronicle of 1513.

Of a different type of early stocks we have only an illustration in the Landshut Armory Inventory of 1485.

Regards,
Michael