A Spanish escopeta

[Philip]

Hi, Fernando
Congratulations on a piece in so fine condition, complete and not "monkeyed with"! It's obvious that it was made by someone with considerable skill, the fit and finish is very good and it appears to have had good care given to it during its working life.

In response to Norman's post: yes, the "boot" shaped Catalan stock dates from way before when this piece was made, the 17th cent. at least, it not before. James D. Lavin's A HISTORY OF SPANISH FIREARMS (1965) would be one place to learn about the development of this form.

Regarding the "late" appearance of the "llave de patilla": yes, it's true that the "French" lock and its percussion successors had made considerable inroads into the Iberian during the early 19th cent., as with anything else the transition was not uniform. Gunsmiths, and their customers, in the more sophisticated larger metro areas would have learned about and embraced the new styles earlier, whereas the provinces stayed rather conservative. Here in the US I have encountered over the years a number of mousequetons and blunderbusses brougnt to America by early Basque immigrants (they were mostly sheep herders who used the weapons for defense) and the majority of them had traditional miquelet locks like this one. Some were made as percussion, others were conversions judging from the filled holes in the lockplates for the now-unneeded screws and pins for the divers parts of the older flint system.