1481 - the world's earliest dated handgun

[Matchlock]

It is red beneath the black lacquer!

There seem to be only a few places of cleaned white iron.

With the black taken off it should look more or less like a barrel in the Germanisches National Museum Nuremberg; images attached (posted here before).

The barrel in Nuremberg is the remaining part of a tiller/stick haquebut, wrought iron, hexagonal (not octagonal), with changing sides at the middle and a punched decorative lozenge pattern on the heavily swamped and reinforced muzzle head; made in Nuremberg, ca. 1460's.

Its provenance is the famos Hohenaschau Castle in Upper Bavaria; I am proud to say that there is a matchlock musket dated 1633 in my collection that also came from Schloss Hohenaschau. In the 1880's it was in the collection of Heinrich von Hefner-Alteneck, the first director of the then newly founded Bavarian National Museum.

I do not have the exact measurements of this haquebut barrel but I should assume it is about 75-80 cm long and quite a heavy piece.

Best,
Michael

[Spiridonov]

Was the paint made of minium or cinnabar on you arquebese? It was mixed by linen oil or eggs?

[Spiridonov]

This barrel was painted too:

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by Spiridonov

Was the paint made of minium or cinnabar on you arquebese? It was mixed by linen oil or eggs?

It is minium (red lead), as I stated; nothing is known about the mixture.

m

[fernando]

Fantastic imaculate pieces, Michael.
Say Alexander, that excelent example you posted; is the stock original or a modern reproduction?
And the iron bands and hook; are they from the period?
Fernando

[Matchlock]

Hi Fernando,

I am afraid the whole piece that Alexander posted is a modern copy. There is one rather similar in the Military Museum Prague and this one, in my eyes, is a copy too.

Best,
Michael

[Philip]

Dear Michael,
You might be interested in an article, "The World's Oldest Dated Gun" by the late British firearms expert Howard L. Blackmore, publ. in ARMS COLLECTING, Vol.34, No. 2, pp 39-47. He discusses a Chinese hand-cannon dated 1332 (now in the Historical Museum, Beijing), and includes photos of another example dated to ca. 1409 (Rotunda, Woolwich), and three further specimens dated 1421, 1423, and 1426 (S. Yoshioka Collection). All these are of bronze with inscriptions including the dates; the three Yoshioka pieces are of a type also known to have been in use in Vietnam early in the 15th cent. The Munich iron handgun which is the subject of this thread may be an early one indeed, but Mr. Blackmore, in his GUNS AND RIFLES OF THE WORLD (NY: 1965), illustrates two Hakenbuechsen which he believed may predate it: an iron one (Historisches Museum, Bern, no. 2193) believed to be late 14th cent., and a bronze specimen (National Historical Mus., Stockholm, no. 23136) attributed to the same period.

[Matchlock]

Hi Philip,

Thank indeed your for your engaged research work.

I am sorry to say that the so called 1332 Chinese handgun is meanwhile known to be a fake - the shape of the cyphers is modern, so they must be a modern addition.

The other cited pieces I have not seen myself but as this is the European forum I confined both myself and my collection to this part of the northern hemisphere.

I posted the early Swiss pieces quoted by you on the forum some time ago. There is no doubt that the small stocked piece is datable around 1400, the hook being a working addition of ca. 1430.

Anyway, please note that the title of this my contribution clearly confines itself to dated, which per se excludes the Swiss pieces. Let me point out that, in Europe, we generally hardly find any dated painting or any work of arts and crafts before ca. 1450! (tombstones in cathedrals excepted).

In the world of weaponry, and by the the staff of the leadimg museums, my 1481 haquebut barrel is acknowledged to be the earliest known dated European handgun (cannon barrels excluded); so could we agree on solving our discourse by replacing the world's in my title line by Europe's, o.k.? .

Best,
Michael