inherited a flintlock... i know nothing

[skiendog]

Hello everyone, and good evening.

My grandfather has given me this old flintlock. The true story is that his father (my great grand father) won it in a card game off of a gentleman on an island in the pacific ocean. I like to tell my friends he was in an epic duel with a pirate in the Caribbean, and took it as his trophy.

It appears to have Asian-writing type markings on the top of the handle. The wood is very well carved and decorated over almost the entire length of the gun. There appears to be some (silver??) inlay, and very nice work. The barrel is 10", and the caliber appears to be 0.55" at the muzzle. An obvious detail is that the hammer is missing.

Any other information would be wonderful. If it is worth anything, I would be interested in getting in contact with anyone who could restore it and find a period-appropriate hammer. If it's worthless, I will just keep it in the family another 100 years. Thanks everyone!

pictures to come in just a second... they are loading.

 

[skiendog]

 

[skiendog]

I am having a lot of difficulty trying to get a picture that shows the (Asian??) markings very well. I apologize, but I am doing my best.

Does anyone want to try and confirm/deny my thoughts about these markings being Asian? Was anyone making flintlocks in Asia, 200 years ago?

 

[Zonie]

Welcome to the Forum.

As there have been thousands of different pistols made this might take a while for folks to start giving answers to your questions.

The grip seems to have some similarity to the French pistols. Beyond that, I'm still digging.

The engraving on the barrels tang (the part that goes down the back of the grip) don't have any meaning to me at the moment.

Are there any stamps or marks on barrel at the rear? When guns were proof tested they often were marked to signify they had passed the test.
If a proof mark exists it would help greatly to know what it looks like as this can tell us where the gun was made.

A nice well lit picture looking directly at the lock might help too as different lock plate shapes were used by the various countries that made guns.

Because this is not a reproduction pistol, I'm moving the Topic to the Firearm Research forum area.

 

[curator]

The grooved frizzen face is of Spanish influence. Look on the barrel near the breech end (possibly underneath) for proof or touch marks. Sometimes these will help determine the origin.

 

[miqueleter]

Skiendog, you may be right about the pirate thing. This pistol screams Barbary Coast, North Africa, Ottoman corsair, probably made in Europe for the African trade. Curator is spot on about the frizzen grooves being a Spanish influence. The grooving is a carry over from the miquelet locks so prevalent to the area. The tang markings appear to me to be Arab.
And yes, worth keeping. That's my SWAG on the matter.

 

[trent/OH]

After you've fired, you could do a LOT of damage by swinging it like a club and hitting someone with that pistol butt! That just looks painful.

 

[DutchmanDick]

Looks very much Arabian/north African/Turkish to me.

 

[Twice boom]

I'm thinking Turkish made with Spanish parts.
Twice.