Dating Earliest Barrels: the Importance of the Position of the Touch Hole

[Matchlock]

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Another group of five haquebuts, of similar shape but varying in size - among them two average haquebuts (German: ganze Haken), weighing about 8 and 12 kg respectively, and two huge and heavy wall guns weighing ca. 20 kg (German: Doppelhaken) - , was discovered standing upright on a board on the wall of a long and narrow bricked-up room (!) in the Castle of Kronburg, near Memmingen, Bavaria, after WW II when the castle had to be restored. They all retained their original ash wood full stocks, the buttstocks shaped exactly like the ones illustrated in the Ingenieurkunst- u. Wunderbuch, ca. 1520, Weimar, cod. 328, fol. 213r, and by Erhard Schön, Nürnberg, 1535 (scans attached). The barrels do not have rear sights but there are bead foresights on the muzzle section.

What is most remarkable about those five guns is the fact that the barrels have retained their original sockets, even with remains of their original tiller stocks in those sockets, and thus they were fully stocked in ash in the early 1520's!

Those haquebuts were, together with books and other arms from Schloss Kronburg, sold at auction with Venator KG, Cologne, 30-31 October 1953, lots 8-12. Each of them was estimated at 250 DM but they went way below that limit. A copy of that sales catalog is in my library.
I have succeeded in tracing back the present whereabouts of four of them. The two shortest of them were bought in 1953 by a Berlin collector, Herr Paul, and after his death I acquired one of them in 2001:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...uebut+kronburg

Meanwhile, the two huge samples are in the collection of a friend of mine in Austria, while the fourth haquebut, the smallest of them all, is in a German private collection. One was at sale with Hermann Historica's, Munich, 20. May 2010, lot 1010, the other came through a German dealer in 2009.

All of them are preserved in fine, 'untouched' and heavily patinated condition, with all the edges of the wood still very crisp, and the barrels retaining much of their original red lead minium coat of paint.
The sample in my collection is the second smallest of the four.
Overall length 1.34 m, barrel length without socket 67 cm, socket 22 cm, maximum outer diameter 6.0 cm, minimum o.d. 4.0 cm, bore 25 mm, weight 12 kg.

One of the originally five haquebuts is lost.


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

More of the Kronburg haquebuts.

Although Hermann Historica's catalog description stated that the stock was of oak, it really was of ash.


m

[Matchlock]

Illustrations by Bartholomäus Freysleben (1490-1500) and Jörg Kölderer (1507), from the Tyrolean arsenal inventories for Maximilian I, depicting exactly that type of tiller haquebuts, the barrel painted red with minium (red lead).

m

[Matchlock]

Some more instances.

[Matchlock]

A heavy tiller wall gun (German: Doppelhaken) retaining its original long tiller (oak?) stock, ca. 1500-10; barrel of round section throughout, conical touch hole, swamped muzzle; long, rectangular hook.
Overall length 1.74 m.
Sold Hermann Historica, Munich, 14 October 1988.

m

[Matchlock]

A heavy, fully stocked wall gun (Doppelhaken), most probably Austria, ca. 1515-20, the barrel of round section throughout, with elongated, swamped, octagonal muzzle section (decisive for assigning its date), one edge turned upward to act as a foresight, small touch hole located on half-right side, with large hollowed pan-like trough to hold the priming mass and guide the igniting iron; attached to the oaken full stock by two 'folded' iron bands, the hook pulled over the barrel by a cuff, scroll buttstock.
Overall length 178 cm.

These heavy wall guns were no longer long guns, they actually were the smallest pieces of artillery, often mounted on a tripod, and served by two men, aimer and igniter (Richt- und Feuerschütze).
Source of period artwork from Jörg Kölderer's illustrations of 1507, from the arsenal inventories of the Tyrolean armories of King Maximilian I.

Sold Hermann Historica, Munich, 22 April 1988.

[Matchlock]

Another heavy wrought-iron tiller haquebut barrel, ca. 1500-10 (wall gun, ganzer Haken), the wooden tiller stock broken off but remains of oak retained in the socket; round socket, barrel octagonal to round, with stepped, pointed, pierced hook placed unusually far at the rear, at about 40 per cent of the overall length of the piece, large touch hole with hollowed igniting pan beneath, located at half-right position; short, swamped, round muzzle section accentuated by a small roped frieze ('Maximilian' style muzzle, Maximilianischer Mündungskopf).
Length overall 108 cm, weight ca. 10 kg.

Sold Hermann Historica, Munich, 22 April 1988.

[Spiridonov]

Michael, thank You so much. You share photos of a lot of barrels which I have not seen before. It's a really rich food for my mind. I need some time to comprehend this information