May 17, 2022 Early Arms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/17/2022
An American pin-fastened musket with a 45 - 7/8" long, tapered barrel of .81 bore which transitions from octagonal to round, with traces of illegible view or maker marks near the breech. The lock is of German manufacture and copied from those used since the 1740s by the Prussian Army; it bears no cipher or marks but is a pattern heavily used by a number of the Hessian and other Germanic principalities whose troops fought in the Revolutionary War, musket bearing such in numerous museum collections and the parts found archaeologically on Revolutionary battlefields and campsites. This example has a large “U S” struck on the tail of the flat, beveled lock. The buttplate, trigger guard, and ramrod pipes are all forged iron. There is no sideplate. The stock is of American black walnut, carved with an extremely long “small” or grip to the handrail-type butt and no swell to the forestock. The stock was originally carved to receive a different lock form, but it was remortised instead during setup to utilize this captured German military lock. The left cheek of the stock bears a large “I+P” (1 - 1/2" high) painted upon it with yellow ochre paint. The architecture and form of this musket suggests that it might have been originally intended to have been furnished during or following the Revolutionary War as a gift arm to native American allies, such as the Delaware or Oneida nations, although the cutback of the forestock and the top-mounted, bayonet lug still allows for fixing a bayonet. CONDITION: This musket is in superb, desirable “attic” condition, with the iron parts with a pleasing, dark gunmetal grey patina and the musket with original surface, marred only by an occasional bruise or ding. PROVENANCE: This musket was long in the collection of noted collector and arms historian William Guthman, who sold in the late 1980s to a Maryland collector, from whose estate it was recently released. It is illustrated and discussed on page 47 of Guthman’s book “U.S. Army Weapons, 1784-1791” (1975). JLK
Caliber/Bore
.81 Smoothbore