Albanian Musket

[rickystl]

Hello. And Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to ALL. Although it's been a strange 2020. But I'll leave that to other Threads. LOL

Some of you know of my interest in Eastern type guns. So I thought I would post this one here primarily to show the high level of craftsmanship and condition of this original. While I own three others, (one in shooting condition) none have the caliber of workmanship of this piece. This gun would have obviously been built for a wealthy customer. And must have taken a skilled gunsmith a long time to complete.

This gun is known by collectors as an Albanian long gun/musket. It is completely mounted in iron and silver and profusely covered with high quality engraving and file work. The typical Balkan style miquelet lock is in perfect working order. And the frizzen face looks like it's never been struck with a flint. Even the bottom of the mainspring has the Albanian bird crest engraved. The barrel, with cannon style muzzle has fine engraving and filled with silver wire. And the bore is in unbelievably good condition. Looks like nothing beyond a couple of test firings. Possibly before it was mounted to the gun.

But, again, I primarily wanted to post this gun so you guys can see the level of engraving and silver work. Picture heavy. And thanks for looking. Fun stuff. LOL

Rick

 

[rickystl]

MORE PICS.........

 

[rickystl]

AND STILL MORE..........

 

[dave_person]

Hi Ricky,
Boy, that is an exceptional piece! What a beauty. The metal shaping work alone is amazing apart from the chiseling and engraving. The metal chiseler and engraver was as good as any other master working anywhere during that time.

dave

 

[Blitz]

Hi Ricky,
Boy, that is an exceptional piece! What a beauty. The metal shaping work alone is amazing apart from the chiseling and engraving. The metal chiseler and engraver was as good as any other master working anywhere during that time.

dave

A very interesting piece. Middle eastern influences?
Interesting stock shape. Firing while mounted ?
Very unusual trigger guard extension and flat frizzen with channeled pan to touch hole.
A good deal of craftmanship displayed, quite striking.

Buzz

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

Albaniwho??

Sorry not good with geology!

 

[Rudyard]

Or geography ? .Very nice piece thanks for showing us it.
Rudyard

 

[Musketeer]

North of Greece, northwest I believe. Middle Eastern influence would be quite significant there. The trigger guard is very interesting. Gives the look of a "tickler" style trigger from an earlier firearm or crossbow. I wonder if that is the point?

 

[Sam squanch]

Just in time for the muzzleloading deer season! Seriously, that is one very nice musket.

 

[nkbj]

Thanks for the lovely pictures.
Have you measured the bore diameter?

PS,
Wanted to say something like WOW New York really had some great gun smiths!
But haven't had enough coffee to figger out how to pull it off.
Thanks again, that piece is an awesome work of art.

 

[Story]

Albaniwho??
Sorry not good with geology!

Or geography ? .Very nice piece thanks for showing us it.
Rudyard

*Guffaw*

 

[JBrandon]

Albania - as the map shows, across the Adriatic from 'the back' of Italy. In the 19th Century, a major Ottoman gun-making industry there. Most familiar are the 'rat-tail' miquelet pistols. Also a gunflint industry, using a very different technique from the Fr and Brit flints.

 

[rickystl]

Thank you ALL for your replies and comments.

Hi Dave: This one is what many collectors call a real SCREAMER !! LOL. The silver repousse work is just wonderful on this piece. By the way, you are darn good with gun art yourself LOL

The bore measures out about .70 caliber. A bit larger, as most of these Tanchika muskets seem to come in around .60-.65 caliber. A rudimentary inspection of the bore tells me this gun is probably in safe firing condition as is. I still need to dis-assemble it and do a simple cleaning. Especially the lock. As they say...it's on the to-do list. LOL There might be some marks on the bottom of the barrel, but probably not as most eastern guns marks are on the top of the barrel, spurious or not.

As mentioned above, note the pan to vent hole relationship. That so called "fuse" design seemed to be the theory at the time, at least in that region of the world. And they certainly had different ideas in stock design. And they certainly had a penchant for decorating their guns.

Rick

 

[rickystl]

Hi JBrandon

Those rat tail pistols have such a thin grip, you need to wear one of those finger-less leather gloves just to hold it steady while aiming. LOL
Yes, there were many large gun making centers in that region. In fact, I've read where an entire town would be involved in making arms under contract with the Ottoman Empire. I've also read that the flints mined from that region were not as good in quality as the English black or French amber. While miquelet locks in general tend to have stronger mainsprings, the flint quality in the region may account for the extra strong mainsprings on many of their locks (?)
The lock on your rat tail pistol is the same design as on my musket. Just pistol size. This Balkan style lock is strong and reliable. They seemed to have got the geometry right on this one, as it shows up on a large variety of different Eastern market guns.

Rick

 

[RAEDWALD]

The traditional gun flints for these differ from the northern european spall and worked gun flints (and tinder light flints) as detailed in
'On the Flint-Knapper's Art in Albania'. By Evans, Arthur J. which can be viewed and downloaded from On the Flint-Knapper's Art in Albania.

It is likely that many such were sold for use in tinder lighters, which is the origin of all gun flints before they were set into early flint locks and made for that trade.

 

[Blitz]

North of Greece, northwest I believe. Middle Eastern influence would be quite significant there. The trigger guard is very interesting. Gives the look of a "tickler" style trigger from an earlier firearm or crossbow. I wonder if that is the point?

Tickler

 

[Kozmo]

Extraordinary firearm! Thank you for sharing. With the historically turbulent history of the Balkans region, it's little surprise that few of these weapons survived till today. This one is an exceptional example!

On a side note, I had an Albanian girlfriend in the early 2000s. She was every bit as exotic and attractive as this rifle. I laughed out loud when I read the "screamer" comment too. Fond memories, but I'll leave that out of the comments here...

 

[toot]

and every one call's them this kind of gun A CAMEL GUN, because of the length of it to be loaded from / on a CAMEL. wrong, I guess?

 

[toot]

what is the difference if any, between them, if any? is there any animal as a CAMEL GUN? just curious?

 

[Nameless Hunter]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing!