Miquelet Folding-Stock Carbine, 1750

Only $5-6K and it's your's!

Excellent Spanish high art folding-stock miquelet flintlock carbine with Italian chiseled steel mounts in the manner of 1750. Barrel is 16 7/8" long and .69 caliber with octagonal breach, "wedding band" changing to round, muzzle ring and integral front sight. Fine quality "Patilla" miquelet lock with floral engraving and scrolling. Chiseled steel breech tang and steel surrounded in high relief with foliage. Side plate chiseled in relief to match. Trigger plate chiseled to match with no guard except when the carved stock is folded to accommodate.

Dense Spanish walnut stock inlaid with three decorative chiseled steel plates. Very elaborate panel to entirety of the butt plate. All mounts matching. Barrel retained with two Spanish pierced openwork steel bands. Bore is fine and action is excellent. With original ramrod. A fantastic and rare Spanish carbine custom made in the Italian manner. Size 29 1/2" L, barrel 16 3/4" L

Interesting that the stock folding mechanism and the overall style is so heavily inspired by mid 17th century Italian carbines. Looks like they got influenced by their underlings.

That is the same style of stock latching mechanism my "wolf killer" blunderbuss has.
Mine is Italian from around 1720 or so...
Neat!
William

Hi Flint.

I saw this one. It is a great example and appears in super condition. It has both Spanish and Italian influences. My first guess (assuming no signature) is that it's from Southern Italy. Spain controlled Southern Italy during this period. Often you see guns from this area with a mix of both cultures. And this one is a great example. The Spanish, including civilians, seemed to have a special fondness for short-barreled musket-toons and blunderbuss, all the way up through the percussion period. Likely this popularity found it's way to Italy. One reason has been suggested that they were easy to conceal under a cloak. This folding stock would make it even easier. A quick flip of the butt stock and it's ready to point and fire. And the stock would allow just a medium sized bag for other travel carry. Of course, the lack of a trigger guard was so there was no interference when folding the stock. A very cool gun.

Rick

I always find it amazing that our ancestors pretty much invented everything before. Even machine guns and optical sights way back when.

Flint62Smoothie said:

Only $5-6K and it's your's!

Excellent Spanish high art folding-stock miquelet flintlock carbine with Italian chiseled steel mounts in the manner of 1750. Barrel is 16 7/8" long and .69 caliber with octagonal breach, "wedding band" changing to round, muzzle ring and integral front sight. Fine quality "Patilla" miquelet lock with floral engraving and scrolling. Chiseled steel breech tang and steel surrounded in high relief with foliage. Side plate chiseled in relief to match. Trigger plate chiseled to match with no guard except when the carved stock is folded to accommodate.

Dense Spanish walnut stock inlaid with three decorative chiseled steel plates. Very elaborate panel to entirety of the butt plate. All mounts matching. Barrel retained with two Spanish pierced openwork steel bands. Bore is fine and action is excellent. With original ramrod. A fantastic and rare Spanish carbine custom made in the Italian manner. Size 29 1/2" L, barrel 16 3/4" L

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Nothing new under the Sun!!!

rickystl said:

Hi Flint.

I saw this one. It is a great example and appears in super condition. It has both Spanish and Italian influences. My first guess (assuming no signature) is that it's from Southern Italy. Spain controlled Southern Italy during this period. Often you see guns from this area with a mix of both cultures. And this one is a great example. The Spanish, including civilians, seemed to have a special fondness for short-barreled musket-toons and blunderbuss, all the way up through the percussion period. Likely this popularity found it's way to Italy. One reason has been suggested that they were easy to conceal under a cloak. This folding stock would make it even easier. A quick flip of the butt stock and it's ready to point and fire. And the stock would allow just a medium sized bag for other travel carry. Of course, the lack of a trigger guard was so there was no interference when folding the stock. A very cool gun.

Rick

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Spain also controlled the Duchy of Milan from the mid 1500s-~1700 and that was in the major arms producing region of Italy. Could have gotten the influence from that region.

TobJohn said:

Spain also controlled the Duchy of Milan from the mid 1500s-~1700 and that was in the major arms producing region of Italy. Could have gotten the influence from that region.

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Yes, could be. The lock is purely Spanish mid-century in style and function. Could even be an owner of Italian background living in Spain. LOL Most of the guns from Central Italy seemed to prefer their own variation of the Naples/Roman style lock. Northern Italy , based on confirmed examples, seemed to be a mix of everything in use in Europe at the time.

A nice piece of plunder.

You have to wonder just how those people in that time period were able to produce such works of art! Thanks for the pictures.

That latch also reminds me of the Smith carbine.

I suppose this could be part of an argument, that the founders only spoke of muskets not what we have available now.

I read that these were popular with coachmen , as they took up little room when folded.

Greetings Flint,
This is a nice potential project. I like different and have never made a folding stock. Could be fun. Thanks for posting. I tried responding earlier but doesn't look like it came through. Thanks,Hank