Spanish Miquelet Lock

[rickystl]

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[Oliver Pinchot]

Beautiful lock, congratulations. Impressive provenance as well.
W. Keith Neal was one of the best antique gun collectors of the 20th century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Keith_Neal

[fernando]

Great lock, great lock smith ... and great ex-owner.
Congratulations, Rick .

[Philip]

Congratulations!

Provenance: W Keith Neal is the author of Spanish Guns and Pistols (1955), a pioneering reference on the subject in English and unsurpassed until James D Lavin's A History of Spanish Firearms a decade later.

The maker: Antonio Navarro (Nabarro in the spelling of the era) flourished in the 1790s and started out as a student of court gunsmith Miguel de Zegarra. On barrels, his countermark is a sailing ship, below the punzón seen on the plate of your lock

The lock: very good design and craftsmanship, worthy of Navarro's status on the short list of esteemed Madrid gunsmiths compiled by Isidro Soler, who along with Nicolás Bis who had quasi-legendary status in the trade.

What I find distinctive about your lock is the shape of the plate, specifically its "tail". Downward-canted and with a rounded terminus. This shape is typical on patilla locks of this type seen on Portuguese guns; it seems to be a stylistic carry-over from the the lockplates of an earlier type of flint mechanism originating in that country, called fecho de molinhas. Compare with the forms of "tail" encountered on Spanish-made locks -- straight with rounded end, or pointed in the French style are the most common (German versions of miquelet locks often have squared off tails; the lock had something of a following among sportsmen there at the turn of the 18th cent.)

Perhaps this lock was made with the Portuguese market in mind. The profile of the cock with its long tapering jaws is also consistent with Lusitanian taste of the time, when prevailing Spanish (and Neapolitan) style tended to shorter jaws.

[Fernando K]

Hello

The lock presented is "three fashions", mentioned by Lavin and documented in a document from the Palace. First, because it saves from the classic miquelete the firing system, horizontal with chocks and the frizzen scratched- Second Because it takes from the lock "à la Francesa" the bowl with its flange in one piece, and not as in the miquelete, which has a false flange that hides the frizzen spring. Third. Because the frizzen spring is in sight, and on top of the real spring as in the lock "a la romana", although the orientation is different, as in the miquelete.

Here importance has been given to the shape of the tail of the platen, as intended for the Portuguese market. There are numerous examples of Spanish miqueletes, with these characteristics and it is generally linked to the position of the safety wedge, which acts at the bottom of the leg curve.

Affectionately

[Fernando K]

Hello

Precisely, here I notice that the safety c a l z o (c a l z o) acts on the lower curve of the p a t i l l a

Affectionately

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Fernando K

Hello

Precisely, here I notice that the safety c a l z o (c a l z o) acts on the lower curve of the p a t i l l a

Affectionately

Yes, I did notice that. But I attach two images of this feature on separate locks, one Spanish, the other Portuguese. The Spanish gun is by Salvador Zenarro, 1790 (image from W K Neal, op cit plate 74. Note that the lockplate has a strong French influence on its shape, its tail is in line with the rest of the profile and does not point downward as on Rick's example.

The image with exterior and interior views is of a lock by a Portuguese gunsmith, dated 1780, from R Daehnhardt's translation and annotation of Espingarda Perfeyta , figs. 29, 30. Same arrangement the calzo de seguranza engaging the crook of the cock's foot, as above. But this lockplate has the downward angled tail as on Rick's lock.

The point I am trying to make is that the same mechanical setup can be accomplished using lockplates of quite different form. These examples should demonstrate that there is no functional connection between lockplate shape and the use of this sear particular arrangement.

Forum readers may be interested in an excerpt from Lavin's History of Spanish Firearms (1965) concerning this mechanical variation (p 164, fig. 17):

"An infrequent variation of this system was that in which the half-cock sear was mounted behind, rather than below, the full-cock. In this position, it encountered not the foot of the cock, but the curve of its arm... This construction seems to have been confined mainly to the eighteenth century."

As an additional note, I would like to point out that use of this sear arrangement persisted in Portugal until the ultimate demise of the flintlock patilla by the end of the first third of the 19th century, this late production exemplified by an exceptional signed and dated example sold at a major auction last year, which I may comment on in a separate post. As a NB, the Portuguese term for this lock is fecho de patilha de invenção.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Fernando K

Here importance has been given to the shape of the tail of the platen, as intended for the Portuguese market. There are numerous examples of Spanish miqueletes, with these characteristics and it is generally linked to the position of the safety wedge, which acts at the bottom of the leg curve.

Affectionately

When I re-read this from your previous post, the phrase "these characteristics" implies more than one thing -- are you talking about both the downward tail and a certain position of the half-cock sear (as I underlined above? I wonder how numerous are the examples of either feature on Spanish miquelets: I have seen far more of the downward tails on Portuguese locks, and the quote from James Lavin's book in my other post indicates that the half cock that engages the crook of the foot is not common-- "infrequent" is the word he uses -- even in Spain.

Now, this having been said --

Thank you for your preceding posts with images. Comparing with what I posted previously, we are actually talking about the same thing -- that the sear arrangement that we are focused on can be used on lockplates of different shape. It further demonstrates that the Portuguese style lockplate with downward tail is not a necessary requirement for the utilization of this type of half-cock sear, because the photo and diagrams we both posted show that the French-style lockplate is also perfectly compatible!