I have a flintlock "rifle" that had hung over the backbar of an old tavern for years. It has marking on the barrel of ELG with a "star" in an oval. There is also a "LLH", a "FG", a "234" (the 4 looks like a slash, a dash and an undotted i pushed together) and a symbol that looks like a double lira. I had a butt plate made for it years ago as someone at some point had removed it. The gun smith said it was a rifled barrel. The barrel bore is larger than a nickle but not as large as a quarter. There are stamping on the top of the trigger guard but they are small and hard to discribe. Does anyone have any ideas of when and where is was made?
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ELG Flintlock
- Thread starter jkimmel
- Start date
The "ELG" is a Belgian proofmark, so that tells you where it was made. There should be an inspector's stamp somewhere on it (usually just a single letter with a star over it) that will let you know which inspector was in charge of the proof-house when this gun passed proof, and that will usually let you know with 30 years or so of when it was actually made. If this gun was made with a rifled barrel, one of the proofmarks should be a capital "R" under a star, for "rayee" (rifled). HTH.
Yeah, it was made in Belgium. Take some good pics including some close ups of the lock and markings and ask here. http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/fusionbb.php? You'll have to sign up to access the forum but there's a lot of knowledge there.
Belgian? well then it is probably a "trade" gun made between 150-50 years ago. Belgium made economical flint or percussion muskets to use in the African or third world trade pretty late, long after cartridge arms were popular in the developed world. May be hard to identify beyond that.