Early 17th Century Scandinavian Gun Lock

[Philip]

Originally Posted by rickystl

Per Philip's mention, an early 17th Century Swedish snaplaoc, and a much later Baltic lock just for comparison.

Rick

Thanks for the pics. The Swedish lock is a snaphaunce, having a separate pan cover and frizzen. Looks like the pan cover is manually operated, isn't it? I don't see a pushrod linking it to the tumbler. A contrast to the more-developed automatic-opening systems (with internal mainsprings acting on tumblers) see on Scottish and Dutch snaphaunces (and thus on later Moroccan locks) or on the Central Italian alla fiorentina locks.

Appears that we are on different pages re the "Baltic lock". You show an interesting and rare early transition to the mature form -- is this a shooter's replica made by The Rifle Shoppe? ' Wonder who has the original prototype -- rare! Notice an essentially snaphaunce system (separate frizzen and pan cover), with external mainspring. And this lock has a pivoting matchlock style pan cover, not a sliding wheellock or snaphaunce type. A very interesting thing -- these Scandinavian locks came from a culture on the fringe of Europe, and appeared right when firearms technology hit the "cusp of change" several times within a short historical span.

What arms writers refer to as the Baltic lock is shown below ( from Robert Held's The Age of Firearms ,1957, p 83). It has an internal mainspring and tumbler much like that of the English flintlock, and a two-part sear with both arms activated by one V-spring which is identical to that of the "Roman" miquelet. Also, note that the lock illustrated here (and most of the originals in published photos) show the rotating frizzen secured by the friction of screw pressure, not by the small V-spring that your lock has.

Back to Fernando K's hypothesis that your lock is an historicism, I can't help but wonder why a reproducer of a later time would go through the trouble to design and make such an innovative feature such as that frizzen retaining system if he was mainly focused on copying something old, especially during Victorian times when the primary purpose of these reproductions was decorative.

The presence of slag inclusions in the lockplate metal is encouraging. Admittedly, the piece looks as though it had been strenuously cleaned in the past. Coming out of a source in Germany, it might be understandable. Back in college on a visit to Nürnberg, I was struck by the shininess of the breastplates on display in the armor hall of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum -- those things were bright! I hope the patina was retained on the posterior surfaces.