Combination Halberd / Matchlock for comment

[Matchlock]

Attached to this post, find photos of the famous so-called Monk's Gun, which, according to the formal, stylistic and technical criteria set up by the author, should be correctly dated "ca. 1525-30", and was almost certainly made in Nuremberg or Augsburg.
Up to now, various arms experts have suggested a very wide time line of dating the Monk's Gun, from "ca. 1450-1550" (Claude Blair, "Further Notes on the Origins of the Wheellock", in: Robert Held (ed.), Arms and Armour Annual, December 1973, pp. 28-47, esp. 42ff.,
up to "before 1667, probably ca. 1600" (Maus. L. Rattinger,
see third attachment to this post).

Please also see my thread on that famous "riddle" of weaponry:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=19033


Actually, the Monk's Gun is a combination of a tubular padlock and a firerarm activated by friction, when the rear ring-shaped bolt is pulled; with a usual padlock, that bolt would, of course, be a key with a threaded haft.
It is preserved in The Saxon Royal Collections, which is the Rüstkammer in Dresden.

Also attached are photos of a large tubular and tapering padlock formerly in the author's collection, and also made in Nuremberg, for a heavy chest, at the very same time, ca. 1525-30.
Further, there is a source of contemporary illustration, an engraving dated 1533, and depicting two padlocks of exactly the same tapering form, securing a large money chest.

The padlock is illustrated in:
Michael Trömner, Behältnisse für Kostbares 1500-1700. Verden, 2005, pp. 82f. and 86.


Best,
Michael Trömner