Mid to Late 16th Century Patrons for Paper Cartridges

[Matchlock]

Hello Richard,

Interesting enough, I sometimes extracted wadding plugs and felt plugs out of some loaded smoothbore flintlock barrels over the decades. They were placed on top of the ball to obviously keep it from rolling out.

In 17th century loaded military barrels I sometimes discovered very fragile wadding pieces from newspapers or books, especially in wheel-lock pistols. They may have been used to form the paper cartridges. A few torn and crumbled pieces of printed paper I found in an untouched leather holster for a long wheel-lock pistol of ca. 1620; the text was German, printed in early 17th century types, with the date 1621 clearly visible. This must have been from a paper cartridge because it contained traces of black powder and was found on the bottom of a lateral compartment containing a wooden block drilled for four paper cartriges, the wood heavily damaged and with considerable remains of black powder on the inside walls.

Even for me who has actually seen and handled a great lot of unique things, this was so unbelievable that I made a photo documentation (sadly not of the paper fragments) which I attach. The length of the holster was 64 cm, the caliber of the bores ca. 12 mm each.

This considered, I now doubt myself that those short strands of tow were actually used as a wadding because the paper of the cartridges would have served that purpose. I think that Manuel's thesis is more convincing than my own and that tow was used for cleaning the priming pan of the match- or wheel-lock musket.

Extremely demanding, these discussions, thank you so much!

With all my best wishes,
Michael

[Matchlock]

The rest.

[Matchlock]

... for officers of the Trabanten-Leibgarde (bodyguards) of the Electors of Saxony, ca. 1580.
As you may have noticed on one on the samples in my collection, all Saxon patrons open by a shift button on the underside while Nuremberg or Ausgburg productions open by a push button on the front.

Photos taken by the author in the collection of famous Burg Eltz.

m

[Matchlock]

For comparison with the items in the previous post, I repost my fine Suhl made Saxon patron of ca. 1580, which features the same shifting knob opening mechanism installed in the bottom mount.

m

[Matchlock]

Another etched Saxon patron, identically equal to my sample posted in the previous thread in both form and workmanship, apart from the etching and the fact that the wooden body of my piece is not stamped in imitation of natural staghorn but leather covered.
This one is dated 1587 and numbered 'NUMERI 23', for guardsman #23.

Best,
m

[Matchlock]

The remaining images.

m

[Matchlock]

This beautiful etched patron of earliest type, datable to ca. 1550-60 on the grounds of the style of its etching, its formal criteria and the fact that instead of the usual loops for leather strings found on other patrons, this one features a straight belt hook which is punched with the Gothic trefoil decoration.
It was sold Christie's, 12 December 2006.

I posted it here before but now I found almost his pair in the Saxon Electoral Armories in Dresden (attached). Thus both can be attrributed to the guard of the Elector August of Saxony.

It is also comparable to the etched and gilt patron dated 1559 in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris, see post #14.

The last attachment shows the belt hook of a powder flask dated 1552, originally belonging to Pfalzgraf Ottheinrich; its belt hook is very similar in both shape and decoration.

m

[Matchlock]

Please also see my threads on wheellock spanners 1520-1650:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...-lock+spanners

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...-lock+spanners

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...llock+spanners

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...l-lock+spanner


Best,
Michael

[Piotr M. Zalewski]

Dear Matchlock!
I admire your knowlage so may be you will know anything about such objects, I have seen in Viena Arsenal Museum. I had asked them, but they said me that this cartridge pouches (which for me looks as polish onces) are withougt history. About sabre with cartridge I had know that it is from Grace Museum.
Can you help? As I had written you in private mesage I am writting a doctorate work about origin of "polish cartridge pouch" so any information I need is very important for me.
Looking forward....
With best regards...
Piotr M. Zalewski

[Matchlock]

Dear Piotr,


Thank you so much for your kind words, they made me blush!

Let's get serious though: actually, admiration is not at all what I deserve. Having dedicated more than 35 years of my life solely to the studies of a section of historical weaponry almost completely neglected so far, I feel obliged to be able and clarify with authority literally any question, as well as produce actual samples to back up my statement.
If it were not so I would have to regard myself as a flash in the pan -to abide by the matchlock image (I do like this pun ).

Concerning your query, I leafed through my 280,000+ analog photo archives for hours until I finally managed to come up with the samples attached. I took them at the Graz Armory (Landeszeughaus) in Styria, Southern Austria, and at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Army Museum) in Vienna.
Depicted are so-called Fuhrmann-Dusäggen (carters' tessaks), ca. 1580-90, meaning Austria manufactured sabers the scabbards of which are combined with a patron. The latter consists of a core of tin-plated sheet divided in an average of 5 soldered cylindrical compartments for paper cartridges. This tinned iron patron was covered with thin leather and formed an integral part of the scabbard locket (German: Mundblech).

For today, and to make your mouth water, I attached a few photos of Styrian Dusäggen in the Graz Armory..
Of course, I will digitalize and post more soon.


Best,
Michael

[Piotr M. Zalewski]

Dear Matchlock,
Thank you for information. Could you tell me what type of firearms they use?
Piotr M. Zalewski

[Matchlock]

Dear Piotr,


Be patient!
And please call me Michael.

I will add a lot more photos, and of course I will try and find out about the guns that originally belonged to these sabres, the scabbard/sheath of each fitted with a cartridge bag each. Both the sabers and the firearms formed the armament of the Styrian carters from about 1560-90.
The leather cartridge bag of the scabbard of each saber held a tinned iron tinned-iron cartridge container consisting of five caliber-size tubes soldered together.

The Michael Trömner Collection holds such an original cartridge bag retaining its tinned-iron cartridge box, and all preserved in fine, virtually ‘untouched’ condition for some 440 years. The inner width of each small tube is 14 mm, corresponding to .55 caliber. In the late 16th century, this was regarded as rather ‘small bore’ whereas it was the most common inner diameter of the barrels of both matchlock and wheellock arquebuses from ca. 1500-1560. My sample still even holds considerable traces of black powder as fine as meal powder – and an original paper cartridge! According to my experiences, black powder from that period will not even burn any more, let alone explode.As black powder was not grained yet in those days, the three components – sulphur, saltpeter and charcoal – have demixed long since and got moist over the centuries. See attachments in the following post.

I remember purchasing that bag from the German dealer Dieter Schempp, at an antique weapons show in Stuttgart in the early 1990's. At 980 Deutsche Mark/490 euros, it was all but cheap for such a small object; I was aware, though, of the fact that that little piece was an extreme rarity and purchased it right away.
It was to turn out that I acted right for I have never come across the like of it ever since. That guy Schempp, who lived near the Bodensee, often sold objects that came from the Graz armory; as I was the one collector he usually offered these things first I acquired most of my Graz related pieces of accouterment from him, and for more than 30 years.

The fact is known among old and skilled collectors that in the 1970’s and 1980’s, a member of the staff of the Graz Landeszeughaus took lots of items – all not documented and photographed at that time – from the reserve collection/depot rooms and sold them, right after closing time of the Graz museum, to a tiny group of three or four Austrian collectors who regularly met at a nearby Gasthaus. A great collector, and long-time friend of mine who lived in Linz/Austria, told me all about it, he, too, acquired a lot of items that way. Sadly he died a few weeks ago. Of course, all those objects were sold for a song, like a supper and a few pints of beer.
Apart from that, the Graz armory/Joanneum officially sold hundreds of pieces of all kinds of weapons, armor and accouterments on various occasions; they also still trade in pieces from the Landeszeughaus/Joanneum depots when collectors offer them an item they are interested in but cannot buy it.
My friend Armin König and I eye-witnessed that fact in September 2005 when the Graz curators Dr. Muchitsch and Dr. Toifl were willing to trade in many objects, among them a short cast-bronze Late Gothic handgonne. I still keep their emails inviting us and stating their willingness to trade and swap items from their collections.

That is a story of its own, though; so let us get back to those cartridge bags.
I do not know if Graz holds any records identifying the sort of guns the Styrian carters employed but they must have been short wheellock arquebuses. Attached find images of such a wheellock arquebus, ca. 1580-90, and preserved at the Graz armory.

Enjoy the photos, as they depict details which hardly anybody has ever been given the chance to detect - or has cared to before I started doing research in such far-out things. Thanks to internet publishing, now we can study each and every little detail magnified and zoomed up to a multiple of its actual size! This quality just cannot be matched by any kind of traditional print media, not matter what book, journal article or catalog!


Best,
Michael Trömner