In my line of work i have been in many thousands of folks homes. I've seen more civil war guns and private collections than you can shake a stick at and it takes a real nice piece to get my attention.
Even though i don't have pics i want to mention 3 guns i've come across.
One was an ancient muzzleloader that had a round, pinwheel type ignition system. Extremely crude and obviously many, many hundreds of years old. The stock was almost full length and had almost no butt. It was made from what the owner thought was whalebone. It was inletted with beautiful and huge slices of mother of pearl. This work was obviously done by someone other than whomever built the gun. I remember that the barrel was not blunderbussed out and the owner thought??? it was spanish. Thats all i know about it but it was surely one of a kind.
The other two were hanging above a fireplace and i ask the owner if i could look at them. He said "sure" and i was soon checking out two Penn. long rifles made by the same man. Unbelievable tiger maple short stocks, switchbarrel design(2 shot), german silver inlets everywhere. I can't remember the builders name but i could find it in one of my antique gun books if i tried. I found it when i got home. John something i think. A common name.Built guns from the 1790's through the 1840's i think it said. Then his sons took over. These must have been later pieces as they were percussion. Anyways, the book priced them at $40,000.00 (15 years ago) but they needed independent varification and grading for final pricing. Wasn't enough of them made to really nail down the worth i'd say.
I told the customer what he had and he laughed as he said he'd bought them both at an estate auction in PA. for a few hundred dollars.
Not looking for additional info on these as theres not much to tell.
Just thought i'd mention seeing these guns as this forum allows me to tell my years worth of meaningless gun stories to an audience who cares
never had that..J.R.
Even though i don't have pics i want to mention 3 guns i've come across.
One was an ancient muzzleloader that had a round, pinwheel type ignition system. Extremely crude and obviously many, many hundreds of years old. The stock was almost full length and had almost no butt. It was made from what the owner thought was whalebone. It was inletted with beautiful and huge slices of mother of pearl. This work was obviously done by someone other than whomever built the gun. I remember that the barrel was not blunderbussed out and the owner thought??? it was spanish. Thats all i know about it but it was surely one of a kind.
The other two were hanging above a fireplace and i ask the owner if i could look at them. He said "sure" and i was soon checking out two Penn. long rifles made by the same man. Unbelievable tiger maple short stocks, switchbarrel design(2 shot), german silver inlets everywhere. I can't remember the builders name but i could find it in one of my antique gun books if i tried. I found it when i got home. John something i think. A common name.Built guns from the 1790's through the 1840's i think it said. Then his sons took over. These must have been later pieces as they were percussion. Anyways, the book priced them at $40,000.00 (15 years ago) but they needed independent varification and grading for final pricing. Wasn't enough of them made to really nail down the worth i'd say.
I told the customer what he had and he laughed as he said he'd bought them both at an estate auction in PA. for a few hundred dollars.
Not looking for additional info on these as theres not much to tell.
Just thought i'd mention seeing these guns as this forum allows me to tell my years worth of meaningless gun stories to an audience who cares
never had that..J.R.
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