Yeah the link when expanded to full screen does give some moderate detail. I think it's an authentic Bess, but to what time period? The "expert" only comments on the patina...nothing else so he's really not an "expert" at all.
First, no measurement of the barrel length. Next, the lock plate is correct for an LLP, single screw to the rear of the ****, but as mentioned the screw on the top jaw is wrong...so did somebody replace the jaw screw, or did they mix up one of the screws from one of the other guns in the family photo, after a cleaning? Normally, the trumpet style first ramrod thimble is associated with an SLP, but the lock is wrong for an SLP. However, the LLP was produced on up into the 1790's, and some brass changes may have been made in the last ones produced...which means this musket didn't see action in the AWI.
The provenance is odd too. HOW did the soldier come to have the musket after the war? If he was a Continental regular, then he would've been switched over to a French musket. If he was in a State regiment, then he might have had a Bess for the duration...and perhaps they allowed him to keep it when mustering out. If he was a regular, he might have been given a Bess, or bought it, when mustering out, as the French musket had become the standard pattern....but it wouldn't have been a gun that he had actually used in combat. If he was militia, it's possible he kept it...but that trumpet thimble begs the question of the manufacture date.
Perhaps he got a surplus musket, with mismatched parts, decades after the war, and his descendants have lost part of the story?
I have a bayonet that my grand parents swore was carried by an ancestor as part of the Mormon Battalion of the Mexican-American War...well it's an antique bayonet but it wasn't made before 1861...family histories are often that way.
LD
First, no measurement of the barrel length. Next, the lock plate is correct for an LLP, single screw to the rear of the ****, but as mentioned the screw on the top jaw is wrong...so did somebody replace the jaw screw, or did they mix up one of the screws from one of the other guns in the family photo, after a cleaning? Normally, the trumpet style first ramrod thimble is associated with an SLP, but the lock is wrong for an SLP. However, the LLP was produced on up into the 1790's, and some brass changes may have been made in the last ones produced...which means this musket didn't see action in the AWI.
The provenance is odd too. HOW did the soldier come to have the musket after the war? If he was a Continental regular, then he would've been switched over to a French musket. If he was in a State regiment, then he might have had a Bess for the duration...and perhaps they allowed him to keep it when mustering out. If he was a regular, he might have been given a Bess, or bought it, when mustering out, as the French musket had become the standard pattern....but it wouldn't have been a gun that he had actually used in combat. If he was militia, it's possible he kept it...but that trumpet thimble begs the question of the manufacture date.
Perhaps he got a surplus musket, with mismatched parts, decades after the war, and his descendants have lost part of the story?
I have a bayonet that my grand parents swore was carried by an ancestor as part of the Mormon Battalion of the Mexican-American War...well it's an antique bayonet but it wasn't made before 1861...family histories are often that way.
LD
