A Good and Rare Austrian Combined Wheellock and Matchlock Musket, ca. 1665-70

Matchlock · 2nd January 2014, 10:33 PM

Well, actually they are now about 150 km north of where they used to be for more than four hundreds of years; they are extremely early, mid-16th c. (!), and were shortened by about 1 m during the Thirty Years War when they were already 70 or 80 years old.
They remained unsold while the auction ran; immediately afterwards I spoke to Christie's and they told me that probably the stabiliziation for shipment and the transport itself of the almost 5 m long pikes would be the real expense factor. At first I had been planning on buying just one of them but how could I display one single pike in my collection when originally they came in mere masses and their squares dominated the battlegrounds for at least 300 years? Then Christie's offered me two for the price of one so the thought immediately jumped to my mind that two of them would in a way stabilize each other and also make a much better display.

To cut a long story short: I ordered them to be stabilized by one long beam 6 on 6 cm, bound between them, and just wrap them thickly with bubbles. It worked out perfectly. The air freight from London to Nuremberg airport, the customs import tax (on both the pikes and the air freight) and the special taxi transport to Regensburg, where I lived then, summed up to double the price that they charged me in London though. There was a third at Christie's, the tip of the pike of different shape; today I feel like I should have bought that one as well ...

Anyway, just one aspect of adventures in a collector's life.

They have been with me for 23 years now and I have only seen a handful of those with their irons still retaining their original bluing - the ones in Salzburg, and a few of those exhibited at the Basel Historic Museum, Switzerland (images attached, suspended hovering high above the famous Basel bronze cannon barrel Drach/Dragon), dated 1514, length 4.93 m.

Best,
Michl

Matchlock · 6th January 2014, 04:02 PM

Another instance of the same Austrian model M 1686; it was estimated at 5,000 euro at a local Bavarian auction house and almost doubled its price; even the ramrod was the original.
On the close-up of the forestock, the characteristic half-moon shaped beechwood pattern is clearly visible.

The pierced buttstock denotes that this musket too came from the Hohensalzburg collection.

m

Matchlock · 8th January 2014, 10:20 PM

A dealer had this on his site, labeled 'price on request'.

Although it has been heavily altered it still is an interesting piece to study.

I'm giong to tell you what the dealer did not say in his description:

From the foregoing we know that the hole drilled through the butt horizontally denotes that this musket, too, comes from Salzburg where it was screwed to the walls of the exhibition rooms.
What is further remarkable is the fact that the wheel shaft has been sawn down. It is now much too short to enable the main spring to be spanned. This was certainly done during the gun's working life as it was the easiest method to render the wheellock ignition inactive. Only the matchlock serpentine could still be employed.

We can but speculate what the reason may have been. From many samples, not just from this series, that I have closely researched and tested, including my own muskets, I can tell that the wheellock action was extremely accident-sensitive and certainly often failed to work, especially in the heat of a fight.

And our gun in discusssion of course was a real 'military' musket.

In most cases, either the brim of the spanning recess in the wheel, and/or the nose of the sear designed to rest in it, will very soon tend to lose the decisive keenness of both their respective edges - resulting in the wheel not being kept in the 'spanned' position any longer. In the experimental arrangement of my researches, some 20 years ago, and with an original wheellock mechanism of ca. 1600 clamped in a jaw vise, and spanned and triggered every 45 seconds - in order to simulate the loading action of a musket - , the action started to falter after around 10-12 times of repetition, and failed to withstand at about the 15th test. The sear nose was retained no longer.

What more can be commented? The Suhl barrel marks of this specimen are extremely faint and impossible to identify, which can rarely be observed with muskets from this series.
The trigger is in a position way too far at the rear end stop, which may denote that either the trigger spring is broken or the lock has been mounted both crudely and inadequately.

Nothing else? Really?
Notwithstanding the fact that the trigger is in the correct position now, this is the very same, identical gun that I presented in the previous post #20! Just compare the incised V-shaped musketeer's inital and the nicks on the buttstock!

Always keep your eyes open for each tiny detail before buying a gun!!!

Best,
Michael

Matchlock · 10th January 2014, 11:02 PM

This sample, ca. 1670-80 was sold at Bonhams, London, in April 2004 at only 1,000 GBP.

Again, the provenance of Salzburg is proven by the hole in the buttstock.

So far, I have presented 11 different copies of that Austrian model, with most of them coming from the former Salzburg armory.
I remember some more that I have documented and will post them soon.

The Salzburg arsenal must have possessed an enormous number of that famous and well wrought type of combined wheellock/matchlock musket, which can hardly be found in other Austrian armories or museums. Neither the armories of Graz or Riegersburg, both situated in Styria, hold one single sample respectively. Eventually it became the second military pattern musket M 1686 in military history, next to the legendary combined flintlock and matchlock musket M 1666 with its integral long folding bayonet, called Montecuccoli after its inventor, Raimund Graf (count) Montecuccoli.
Actually that was a moment in time when the production of those guns had been in full swing already since the 1660's, and was nearing its end. I surmise that the last samples of that type of musket were manufactured in Suhl at the end of the 17th century; I have seen copies the buttstock of which did no longer show the characteristically 'bellied' shape of the 1660's-70's style but was completely straight by then - even straighter than on the sample in the Vienna Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (museum of military history) shown in post #3.

The historical second Turkish siege of Vienna, 14 July till 12 September 1683, certainly was the very fight when those muskets saw their most intensive service.

m

Matchlock · 17th July 2014, 07:53 AM

Please also cf. Andi's post:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...621#post170621

and great contemporary illustrations on Wikipedia:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca..._of_Vienna.png

m

2nd January 2014, 10:33 PM	#1
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	Well, actually they are now about 150 km north of where they used to be for more than four hundreds of years; they are extremely early, mid-16th c. (!), and were shortened by about 1 m during the Thirty Years War when they were already 70 or 80 years old. They remained unsold while the auction ran; immediately afterwards I spoke to Christie's and they told me that probably the stabiliziation for shipment and the transport itself of the almost 5 m long pikes would be the real expense factor. At first I had been planning on buying just one of them but how could I display one single pike in my collection when originally they came in mere masses and their squares dominated the battlegrounds for at least 300 years? Then Christie's offered me two for the price of one so the thought immediately jumped to my mind that two of them would in a way stabilize each other and also make a much better display. To cut a long story short: I ordered them to be stabilized by one long beam 6 on 6 cm, bound between them, and just wrap them thickly with bubbles. It worked out perfectly. The air freight from London to Nuremberg airport, the customs import tax (on both the pikes and the air freight) and the special taxi transport to Regensburg, where I lived then, summed up to double the price that they charged me in London though. There was a third at Christie's, the tip of the pike of different shape; today I feel like I should have bought that one as well ... Anyway, just one aspect of adventures in a collector's life. They have been with me for 23 years now and I have only seen a handful of those with their irons still retaining their original bluing - the ones in Salzburg, and a few of those exhibited at the Basel Historic Museum, Switzerland (images attached, suspended hovering high above the famous Basel bronze cannon barrel Drach/Dragon), dated 1514, length 4.93 m. Best, Michl Attached Images Last edited by Matchlock; 3rd January 2014 at 12:28 PM.

10th January 2014, 11:02 PM	#4
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	This sample, ca. 1670-80 was sold at Bonhams, London, in April 2004 at only 1,000 GBP. Again, the provenance of Salzburg is proven by the hole in the buttstock. So far, I have presented 11 different copies of that Austrian model, with most of them coming from the former Salzburg armory. I remember some more that I have documented and will post them soon. The Salzburg arsenal must have possessed an enormous number of that famous and well wrought type of combined wheellock/matchlock musket, which can hardly be found in other Austrian armories or museums. Neither the armories of Graz or Riegersburg, both situated in Styria, hold one single sample respectively. Eventually it became the second military pattern musket M 1686 in military history, next to the legendary combined flintlock and matchlock musket M 1666 with its integral long folding bayonet, called Montecuccoli after its inventor, Raimund Graf (count) Montecuccoli. Actually that was a moment in time when the production of those guns had been in full swing already since the 1660's, and was nearing its end. I surmise that the last samples of that type of musket were manufactured in Suhl at the end of the 17th century; I have seen copies the buttstock of which did no longer show the characteristically 'bellied' shape of the 1660's-70's style but was completely straight by then - even straighter than on the sample in the Vienna Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (museum of military history) shown in post #3. The historical second Turkish siege of Vienna, 14 July till 12 September 1683, certainly was the very fight when those muskets saw their most intensive service. m Attached Images Last edited by Matchlock; 11th January 2014 at 01:29 AM.

6th January 2014, 04:02 PM	#2
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	Another instance of the same Austrian model M 1686; it was estimated at 5,000 euro at a local Bavarian auction house and almost doubled its price; even the ramrod was the original. On the close-up of the forestock, the characteristic half-moon shaped beechwood pattern is clearly visible. The pierced buttstock denotes that this musket too came from the Hohensalzburg collection. m Attached Images Last edited by Matchlock; 6th January 2014 at 04:19 PM.

8th January 2014, 10:20 PM	#3
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	A dealer had this on his site, labeled 'price on request'. Although it has been heavily altered it still is an interesting piece to study. I'm giong to tell you what the dealer did not say in his description: From the foregoing we know that the hole drilled through the butt horizontally denotes that this musket, too, comes from Salzburg where it was screwed to the walls of the exhibition rooms. What is further remarkable is the fact that the wheel shaft has been sawn down. It is now much too short to enable the main spring to be spanned. This was certainly done during the gun's working life as it was the easiest method to render the wheellock ignition inactive. Only the matchlock serpentine could still be employed. We can but speculate what the reason may have been. From many samples, not just from this series, that I have closely researched and tested, including my own muskets, I can tell that the wheellock action was extremely accident-sensitive and certainly often failed to work, especially in the heat of a fight. And our gun in discusssion of course was a real 'military' musket. In most cases, either the brim of the spanning recess in the wheel, and/or the nose of the sear designed to rest in it, will very soon tend to lose the decisive keenness of both their respective edges - resulting in the wheel not being kept in the 'spanned' position any longer. In the experimental arrangement of my researches, some 20 years ago, and with an original wheellock mechanism of ca. 1600 clamped in a jaw vise, and spanned and triggered every 45 seconds - in order to simulate the loading action of a musket - , the action started to falter after around 10-12 times of repetition, and failed to withstand at about the 15th test. The sear nose was retained no longer. What more can be commented? The Suhl barrel marks of this specimen are extremely faint and impossible to identify, which can rarely be observed with muskets from this series. The trigger is in a position way too far at the rear end stop, which may denote that either the trigger spring is broken or the lock has been mounted both crudely and inadequately. Nothing else? Really? Notwithstanding the fact that the trigger is in the correct position now, this is the very same, identical gun that I presented in the previous post #20! Just compare the incised V-shaped musketeer's inital and the nicks on the buttstock! Always keep your eyes open for each tiny detail before buying a gun!!! Best, Michael Attached Images Last edited by Matchlock; 9th January 2014 at 01:28 AM.

17th July 2014, 07:53 AM	#5
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	Please also cf. Andi's post: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...621#post170621 and great contemporary illustrations on Wikipedia: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca..._of_Vienna.png m