Mid to Late 16th Century Patrons for Paper Cartridges

[Piotr M. Zalewski]

Dear Matchlock!
I admire your knowlage so may be you will know anything about such objects, I have seen in Viena Arsenal Museum. I had asked them, but they said me that this cartridge pouches (which for me looks as polish onces) are withougt history. About sabre with cartridge I had know that it is from Grace Museum.
Can you help? As I had written you in private mesage I am writting a doctorate work about origin of "polish cartridge pouch" so any information I need is very important for me.
Looking forward....
With best regards...
Piotr M. Zalewski

[Matchlock]

Dear Piotr,


Thank you so much for your kind words, they made me blush!

Let's get serious though: actually, admiration is not at all what I deserve. Having dedicated more than 35 years of my life solely to the studies of a section of historical weaponry almost completely neglected so far, I feel obliged to be able and clarify with authority literally any question, as well as produce actual samples to back up my statement.
If it were not so I would have to regard myself as a flash in the pan -to abide by the matchlock image (I do like this pun ).

Concerning your query, I leafed through my 280,000+ analog photo archives for hours until I finally managed to come up with the samples attached. I took them at the Graz Armory (Landeszeughaus) in Styria, Southern Austria, and at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Army Museum) in Vienna.
Depicted are so-called Fuhrmann-Dusäggen (carters' tessaks), ca. 1580-90, meaning Austria manufactured sabers the scabbards of which are combined with a patron. The latter consists of a core of tin-plated sheet divided in an average of 5 soldered cylindrical compartments for paper cartridges. This tinned iron patron was covered with thin leather and formed an integral part of the scabbard locket (German: Mundblech).

For today, and to make your mouth water, I attached a few photos of Styrian Dusäggen in the Graz Armory..
Of course, I will digitalize and post more soon.


Best,
Michael

[Piotr M. Zalewski]

Dear Matchlock,
Thank you for information. Could you tell me what type of firearms they use?
Piotr M. Zalewski

[Matchlock]

Dear Piotr,


Be patient!
And please call me Michael.

I will add a lot more photos, and of course I will try and find out about the guns that originally belonged to these sabres, the scabbard/sheath of each fitted with a cartridge bag each. Both the sabers and the firearms formed the armament of the Styrian carters from about 1560-90.
The leather cartridge bag of the scabbard of each saber held a tinned iron tinned-iron cartridge container consisting of five caliber-size tubes soldered together.

The Michael Trömner Collection holds such an original cartridge bag retaining its tinned-iron cartridge box, and all preserved in fine, virtually ‘untouched’ condition for some 440 years. The inner width of each small tube is 14 mm, corresponding to .55 caliber. In the late 16th century, this was regarded as rather ‘small bore’ whereas it was the most common inner diameter of the barrels of both matchlock and wheellock arquebuses from ca. 1500-1560. My sample still even holds considerable traces of black powder as fine as meal powder – and an original paper cartridge! According to my experiences, black powder from that period will not even burn any more, let alone explode.As black powder was not grained yet in those days, the three components – sulphur, saltpeter and charcoal – have demixed long since and got moist over the centuries. See attachments in the following post.

I remember purchasing that bag from the German dealer Dieter Schempp, at an antique weapons show in Stuttgart in the early 1990's. At 980 Deutsche Mark/490 euros, it was all but cheap for such a small object; I was aware, though, of the fact that that little piece was an extreme rarity and purchased it right away.
It was to turn out that I acted right for I have never come across the like of it ever since. That guy Schempp, who lived near the Bodensee, often sold objects that came from the Graz armory; as I was the one collector he usually offered these things first I acquired most of my Graz related pieces of accouterment from him, and for more than 30 years.

The fact is known among old and skilled collectors that in the 1970’s and 1980’s, a member of the staff of the Graz Landeszeughaus took lots of items – all not documented and photographed at that time – from the reserve collection/depot rooms and sold them, right after closing time of the Graz museum, to a tiny group of three or four Austrian collectors who regularly met at a nearby Gasthaus. A great collector, and long-time friend of mine who lived in Linz/Austria, told me all about it, he, too, acquired a lot of items that way. Sadly he died a few weeks ago. Of course, all those objects were sold for a song, like a supper and a few pints of beer.
Apart from that, the Graz armory/Joanneum officially sold hundreds of pieces of all kinds of weapons, armor and accouterments on various occasions; they also still trade in pieces from the Landeszeughaus/Joanneum depots when collectors offer them an item they are interested in but cannot buy it.
My friend Armin König and I eye-witnessed that fact in September 2005 when the Graz curators Dr. Muchitsch and Dr. Toifl were willing to trade in many objects, among them a short cast-bronze Late Gothic handgonne. I still keep their emails inviting us and stating their willingness to trade and swap items from their collections.

That is a story of its own, though; so let us get back to those cartridge bags.
I do not know if Graz holds any records identifying the sort of guns the Styrian carters employed but they must have been short wheellock arquebuses. Attached find images of such a wheellock arquebus, ca. 1580-90, and preserved at the Graz armory.

Enjoy the photos, as they depict details which hardly anybody has ever been given the chance to detect - or has cared to before I started doing research in such far-out things. Thanks to internet publishing, now we can study each and every little detail magnified and zoomed up to a multiple of its actual size! This quality just cannot be matched by any kind of traditional print media, not matter what book, journal article or catalog!


Best,
Michael Trömner

[Matchlock]

Here is a Nuremberg manufactured wheellock arquebus of the 1580's to ca. 1590.
It should be considered as the characteristic type of short wheellock gun that would seem ideal for Styrian carters, together with their sabers; its caliber of 13.6 mm excactly fits the inner diameter (14 mm) of the cartridge containers wrought integrally with the scabbards.
The saddle ring mounted opposite of the lock denotes that it was employed by a horseman, probably one of the armed riders escorting the carts.
Landeszeughaus Graz, inv.no. RG 10.
Scans from:
Robert Brooker: Radschloss Sammlung (sic!) - Wheellock Collection. Landeszeughaus Graz, Austria, 2007, p.319.


The long iron finial of the wooden ramrod threaded for a worm or scourer is an early feature that, in some instances, was tradionally kept until the end of the 16th century; it emerges first in about 1530 when wooden ramrods were often fitted with iron finals to both ends.
A very fine, long (1.63 m overall) and elegantly designed sniper's wheellock musket of ca. 1590, in the Italian manner but obviously made at an Augsburg workshop, and preserved in almost mint condition, is in The Michael Trömner Collection and will be introduced in a thread of its own.
Attached at the bottom are three images which I took in my collection on 19 June 2014.

This extraordinary and outstanding musket comes from the amory at the Fortress Hohensalzburg from where it was deaccessioned illegally (to say the least), together with literally thousands of all kinds of weapons, by the museum's director Dr. Albin Rohrmoser, in 1986-89. Right on dectection, he shot himself. Nevertheless the Salzburg museum Carolino Augusteum was scandalized because some people know the facts, and my analog photos are documents.

I photographed the reserve collection just a few days before its disposal; there was literally heaps of guns and long pikes all of which, so I was told by a staff member, got readied to be collected by some dealers the next day.
Dieter Mayer, who lives in Neuötting, Bavaria, eyewitnessed everything I am telling.

Attached to the following post find two photos I took - two, out of 200+ ...
I definitely know the people involved. For years thereafter, sheer masses of Salzburg arsenal arms and accouterments kept floating the market, including international sales houses like Christie's London, Galerie Fischer Lucerne and Hermann Historica Munich, e.g.

- some 60 combined wheellock and matchlock muskets, Suhl, ca. 1665-70, their butt stocks all drilled! for crude attachment to the wall by long screws, all done in the early 20th century; when I attended the Carolino Augusteum in Salzburg first on 8 November 1987, on the walls of the aisle to the bureaus of the museum staff I noticed old b/w photos depicting the early 20th c. display - with a long row of those muskets screwed to the walls!
One of them has been in The Michael Trömner Collection since April 1988, when I bought it from Franz Christof in Greding, Bavaria; both he and Georg Britsch had acquired hundreds of firearms deaccessioned from Salzburg only weeks ago from another dealer, Werner Mewes, Ulm:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14071&highlight=combined+wheelloc k+matchlock


- mid-16th century long pikes, the iron heads retaining almost all their original bluing!, and mounted on their original ash wood hafts (original length ca. 6 meters, and cut down to 4.60-4.80 meters in the 1st haf of the 17th century; I purchased my two fine specimens at Christie's sale on 19 September 1990, lots 47 and 48, and they have been in The Michael Trömner Collection ever since:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=7123&highlight=pikes+christie%27s

- musket rests with their original fir wood hafts painted red, the iron forks and pointed shoes both preserving either their original case-hardened or blackended finish, and still retaining their Salzburg inventory brass tags
Also attached to the following post are three photos of a Thirty Years War musket rest which I took in the Salzburg depot at the Fortress Hohenwerfen on 8 Nov 1988 - only 2 months before I was offered, and bought, that very same item doubtlessly identifiable by its brass inventory tag!


- finely decorated Nuremberg manufactured patrons/cartridge boxes from the very same series delivered to the Graz armory in 1577-78. I won my sample at Christie's sale of The Eugen Nielsen Collection, 31 March 1993, lot 176; it represents the top quality officers version adorned with dozens of tiny brass studs all shaped like strars. The Graz armory holds the only other two samples I have ever come across, inv.nos. PK 15 and PK 18; cf. Brooker, p. 625 - cf. previous post, and my posts #1 and 10 - right above in the thread you are reading at this moment:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8540&highlight=patrons+cartridge+ boxes+nuremberg


Although some stylistic features of the Graz arquebus in discussion can be found with guns dating from ca. 1570 in general the author is convinced that this Styrian arsenal specimen should not be dated any earlier than ca 1580.
Its latest feature is definitely the bridle (German: Studel) bridging the arms of the dog spring as well as the leaf spring of the safety catch, and securing both of them to two screws simultaneously.

The earliest known wheellock featuring an external bridle to the dog spring is an unusually long combined wheellock and snap-tinderlock musket of ca. 1570, the bridle! to the spring of the tinder holder dated 1574.
According to the Schloss Dyck inventory, that fine and most likely Nuremberg manufactured gun measured 2.45 m overall.
Cf. Max v. Ehrenthal: Die Waffensammlung des Fürsten Salm-Reifferscheidt zu Schloss Dyck, Leipzig, 1906, no.111, p.18.

That piece was probably a paramilitary sniper's gun, its barrel providing long range performance by its length of 211 cm. It was sold Christie's London, as part of the whole Armory of Their Serene Highnesses the Princes von Salm-Reifferscheidt at Schloss Dyck: Part II, 23 Sept. 1992, lot 388.
See attachments to this post.

The bridle to the dog spring of that musket may be considered to be an original Nuremberg technical innovation of the early 1570's, and as an amendment added to this specimen in 1574. This would also account for the unprecedented fact of dating such a tiny part as a bridle.
According to his more than 35 years of research studies, the author defines the long tubular slotted rear sight called 'unusual' in the catalog description, to form - together with the triangular bone inlays of the stock - another stylistic and technical criterion for limiting the time line of dating this gun to ca. 1555-1575, which would generally mean 'ca. 1565-70'.
The long tubular rear sight originated in the 1550's. As the gun combines both traditional and most current elements for post-1570, the date 1574 struck on the bridle definitely marks the year of manufacturing.

The decisive fundamental principle for correctly dating any item, defined first by the author is the most recent/latest stylistic, formal and technical feature found on any object.
Working life alterations and adaptions basically have to be considered of course, and are especially typical of arsenal arms that were kept in working order, and ready to be used in case of an emergency over centuries.
E.g., in the former arsenal at the Fortress Hohenwerfen near Salzburg, Austria, sold at auction in New York in 1927, there were a few Late Gothic haquebut barrels dating from ca. 1490-1500, the stocks probably 16th to 17th century, and transformed to percussion in the mid-19th century!
Cf. sales catalog The Great Historical Collection of Arms & Armour: the Entire Contents of the Armoury, Fortress Hohenwerfen near Salzburg, Austria; Inherited & Augmented by H.I.&R.H. Archduke Eugen, F.M. Anderson Galleries, N.Y., 22nd February through 5th March 1927, lots 583 and 584, p.94;
these two lots sold again, with one of them illustrated:
Sotheby's N.Y., 1 June 1991, lot 420.
Original copies of both catalogs in the author's 3,000+ volume library.



Best,
Michael Trömner

[Matchlock]

Attachments:

- ... close-ups of my long and higly elegant marksman's wheellock musket, Augsburg, in the Italian manner, ca. 1590; note that the original ash wood ramrod is fitted with an iron finial to either end: the one at the fore end reflecting the bulbous style of the muzzle section whereas the longer, rearward finial is internally threaded for a worm or scourer:



- two photos I took of a heap of long guns and pikes at the arms depot of the Fortress Hohensalzburg, Salzburg, Austria, all ready to be deaccessioned; 8 Nov 1987

- three photos of a Thirty Years War musket rest, the fir wood haft characteristically painted red, and with the iron parts retaining all of their original blackened finish; together with many similar specimens, it was removed retaining its Salzburg brass inventory tag shortly after I photographed it on 8 Nov 1987


m

[Matchlock]

.