Inlay and decoration in the pre flintlock era

[TobJohn]

I have to think about that question. If I didn't survive the war...with my last breath laying face down in the mud...I might care less.
If I survived.....I would restore it to pristine except for my initials and date in the stock, hang it on the wall for posterity for someone like TobJohn 400 years later to buy at auction as a rare pristine 30 years war memento, then with the last and perhaps only shekel that I earned fighting for the king... buy me a beater to hunt with so I wouldn't starve to death!

If only I could afford it!

It would have been a truly awful time be a soldier and most of your pay would come from loot. Maybe you could get lucky and a recently stormed town had some “spare” Fowlers or rifles.