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Welcome Mathewson rifle and horn
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Russ T Frizzen
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Joe, welcome to the forum and thank you for all of the information. This is exactly the kind of data many of us hope for. Oh, and feel free to post as many photographs as you want.
Do you happen to know the bore and barrel length of the Mathewson rifle?
Do you happen to know the bore and barrel length of the Mathewson rifle?
Va.Manuf.06
58 Cal.
Joe, that was an excellent post and it is good to have someone who is knowledgeable about New England guns posting. The show is not a new one, I saw it a year or so ago. While Mr. Guthman died a while back, I believe that he was the appraiser; someone will correct me if I am wrong. I did think the estimate was very high, but it is a prestigious item and IF the right people go after it and all of the stars fall in place just right, it could bring that price whether completely justified or not. Such is the world of auctions...
Please do post the pictures along with information, there is so little out there. TIA.
Please do post the pictures along with information, there is so little out there. TIA.
I don't know either the bore or length of the Mathewson rifle but that, its own right, is significant since neither thing struck me when I handled it. Virtually every flint NE rifle I have ever seen is between .50 and .54 caliber with .54 or very close to it being a good 85%. I have one example with some rifling present which is about .63 which may be original or, more likely, the result of being bored out and re-rifled. Thats a hlaf-stock Maynard and it shows a great deal of use.
Now...almost nothing has ever appeared in print about the subject. Bill Achtermeier's book on Rhode Island arms makers is still available from Mowbray Publishing/Man at Arms Magazine. You can find them easily on the web. Man at Arms published one article on the subject by the late Don Andreason (who owned the Mathewson guns illustrated in Achtermeier's book) I don't know what year but it was a long time ago.
I would put very little credence in Lindsey's "New England Gun" it is, pardon the language, a really scr*****ed up book...with captions that have no pictures or are in the wrong places and pictures that have no captions. Also, several things in the book are known Kimble/Teft fakes and for fear of litigation I can't go any further than that in an open forum.
Welcome favored a distinctive flame pattern silver wire work. I have one rifle that has both that and the long hand rail...but I am reluctant to do the "attribution" thing as I feel this is very much over used. We just have to come to grip with the fact that there are things we can't know, and besides, that rifle is also signed and dated although the etched name is "W. Allen - 1817" is unknown as a maker and the date, 1817, is on a filled in dovetail. Does that mean he made it? Or did he repair it? Or perhaps Welcolme restocked it...its anyone's guess.
Joe Puleo
Now...almost nothing has ever appeared in print about the subject. Bill Achtermeier's book on Rhode Island arms makers is still available from Mowbray Publishing/Man at Arms Magazine. You can find them easily on the web. Man at Arms published one article on the subject by the late Don Andreason (who owned the Mathewson guns illustrated in Achtermeier's book) I don't know what year but it was a long time ago.
I would put very little credence in Lindsey's "New England Gun" it is, pardon the language, a really scr*****ed up book...with captions that have no pictures or are in the wrong places and pictures that have no captions. Also, several things in the book are known Kimble/Teft fakes and for fear of litigation I can't go any further than that in an open forum.
Welcome favored a distinctive flame pattern silver wire work. I have one rifle that has both that and the long hand rail...but I am reluctant to do the "attribution" thing as I feel this is very much over used. We just have to come to grip with the fact that there are things we can't know, and besides, that rifle is also signed and dated although the etched name is "W. Allen - 1817" is unknown as a maker and the date, 1817, is on a filled in dovetail. Does that mean he made it? Or did he repair it? Or perhaps Welcolme restocked it...its anyone's guess.
Joe Puleo
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Bill Achtermeier's book on Rhode Island arms makers states that this gun is a .54 cal. It doesan't give a barrel length.
The barrels are almost always 40 to 42 inches long.
Bill Guthman gave a talk at the Mass Arms Collectors years ago where he advanced the theory that most NE rifles were made for members of militia rifle companies. For a number of reasons I agree with him based on my own observations, not the least of which is that by the time they were being made in any quantity there was pratically nothing left to hunt with a .54 caliber rifle south of the New Hampshire line. The village of Limerock (part of Lincoln RI) where I grew up was virtually de-forrested by 1830. My own house (built 1703) is surrounded by fields lined with stone walls...they are in the midst of 2nd and 3rd growth forrests now but as recently as 80 or 90 years ago there were very few trees. There was the usual wood lot and fruit and nut trees were kept but large tracts of forrest were gone - likely by 1800 and maybe even before that.
Target shooting as a NE sport is a product of the 1850s to 1880s. It was very popular but it also generated a different sort of rifle, percussion, often with both hunting and target sights and calibers from .38 to .45 were the norm. In any case, NE ceased to be a "frontier" at the end of the 17th century and much of what we consciously or unconciously base our impressions on is "frontier" life so the traditional NE rifle not only looked different from its Pennsylvania and/or southern cousins, it probably was used differently.
Joe Puleo
Bill Guthman gave a talk at the Mass Arms Collectors years ago where he advanced the theory that most NE rifles were made for members of militia rifle companies. For a number of reasons I agree with him based on my own observations, not the least of which is that by the time they were being made in any quantity there was pratically nothing left to hunt with a .54 caliber rifle south of the New Hampshire line. The village of Limerock (part of Lincoln RI) where I grew up was virtually de-forrested by 1830. My own house (built 1703) is surrounded by fields lined with stone walls...they are in the midst of 2nd and 3rd growth forrests now but as recently as 80 or 90 years ago there were very few trees. There was the usual wood lot and fruit and nut trees were kept but large tracts of forrest were gone - likely by 1800 and maybe even before that.
Target shooting as a NE sport is a product of the 1850s to 1880s. It was very popular but it also generated a different sort of rifle, percussion, often with both hunting and target sights and calibers from .38 to .45 were the norm. In any case, NE ceased to be a "frontier" at the end of the 17th century and much of what we consciously or unconciously base our impressions on is "frontier" life so the traditional NE rifle not only looked different from its Pennsylvania and/or southern cousins, it probably was used differently.
Joe Puleo
Stophel
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Joe is right about collecting. If you want to get into collecting original Early American rifles, then New England rifles are the way to go. Really interesting examples (though almost always unfortunately converted to per-cussed) can even be had for under a thousand bucks! Half stocks, full stocks, wire inlay.... I have one Massachusetts rifle from about 1810 or so, which is quite plain, but still interesting. Cost me all of $575. An early 19th century PA rifle in any kind of reasonably decent condition will fetch $1500 and much more.
Guthman was a famous multi-millionaire collector and appraiser, and had a tendency to appraise everything rather highly (which actually, I think is probably common to appraisers in all fields! :haha: ).
Guthman was a famous multi-millionaire collector and appraiser, and had a tendency to appraise everything rather highly (which actually, I think is probably common to appraisers in all fields! :haha: ).
Russ T Frizzen
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Especially when they smell a commission!
In defense of Bill, who I considered a friend, he was a master at selling into the "folk art" community. It may come as a surprise to many of us but antique firearms are still wildly inexpensive compared to comparable bits of silver, ceramics, textiles and all sorts of things that the "artsy" world collects. Bill knew how to talk to those folks and to get them to part with their money, something I wish I knew how to do. The sale of his collection, which I attended, was split into two parts. The guns & swords were sold by Butterfields who have expertise in that area but the other stuff was sold by an Americana arts auction firm whose mailing list and contacts included many people who would never, under ordinary circumstances, attend a "gun" auction. I know from first hand experience that some of the prices that my fellow NE collectors thought were staggering (one guy referred to the sale as "the blood bath") seemed to be insane bargains to the collecting world that can pay $60,000 for a teapot.
The Mathewson rifle is just the sort of thing that could be sold for a huge amount in that world but that in no way reflects on the relative value of New England rifles...
The most I've ever sold a rifle for was $2500 and that for an unmarked but pratically new flint rifle attributed to the Allens from a well known collection. And I sold it to a friend of the late collector who wanted it partly because he remembered it from visiting his home. (I don't deal in these things...its a long and not very pleasent story concerning the psuedo-divorce from he--)
Bill was the only big time collector of colonial things who liked the same beat up but fascinating things I buy. I buy them because Its what I can afford. He could afford the best but liked the beat up stuff too...I have to admire that in a collecting world that is obsessed with "condition."
I'm now trying to figure out the posting thing. I've taken some pictures of my "could be a Mathewson" rifle. I'll let the rest of you express your opinions.
Joe P
The Mathewson rifle is just the sort of thing that could be sold for a huge amount in that world but that in no way reflects on the relative value of New England rifles...
The most I've ever sold a rifle for was $2500 and that for an unmarked but pratically new flint rifle attributed to the Allens from a well known collection. And I sold it to a friend of the late collector who wanted it partly because he remembered it from visiting his home. (I don't deal in these things...its a long and not very pleasent story concerning the psuedo-divorce from he--)
Bill was the only big time collector of colonial things who liked the same beat up but fascinating things I buy. I buy them because Its what I can afford. He could afford the best but liked the beat up stuff too...I have to admire that in a collecting world that is obsessed with "condition."
I'm now trying to figure out the posting thing. I've taken some pictures of my "could be a Mathewson" rifle. I'll let the rest of you express your opinions.
Joe P
Here's one of them. Loading these is a huge PIA as this site is not, as far as I can tell, MAC friendly and I am using a combination of three computers and my camera. I am concerned about the size as this is probably too small.
Joe P
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Possible to get a pic of the forearm of that rifle Joe?
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Maybe email would work? No worrys though Joe, was just hoping to have pics of this gun for future referance. :thumbsup:
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Hope you don't mind me posting these.
Well, I do have more of them. There is a Maynard here with a horsehead patchbox and a Martin Smith with a militia number on the sideplate. I'll try to do the picture thing again. I'm sure there must be an easier way than the one I'm using but my equipment is used mostly for my work - I edit and design books about antique guns (If you can call that a job...) so everything is set up for high-end graphics, just the opposite of what the internet requires.
Joe P
Joe P
I had too much coffee today so I thought I'd add a few thoughts on NE rifles.
First, much of the style of analysis applied to Pennsylvania rifles is not transferable to New England where Worcester County was the only major center of production. All of the brass bits, especially patchboxes and trigger guards appear to have been supplied by wholesale distributors. The variations are usually minor and have little to do with the maker in any case. If, as I believe, most were made to outfit militia rifle companies, they were made in batches and, not surprisingly there are cases known of more than one nearly identical rifle marked to the same company (though this is rare). I have a John Mason that is marked under the barrel and in the barrel inlet with the roman numeral XXXII - suggesting there were at least 32 guns in the batch. I had a very late Henry Pratt, made as percussion around 1840, with the numeral 62 on the patchbox lid. There were 62 privates in a Mass militia company at the time and this rifle was nearly unused which suggests, as the highest number, it may never have been issued.
The period of manufacture for the NE rifle is also much shorter than for the Pennsylvania rifle. Realistically it extends from around 1800 to 1842 at the latest. In 1842, as part of a reorganization, the state furnished arms to the militia (something it had never done before) and the requirement that every male citizen from 16 to 60 arm himself was allowed to pass into non-enformcement (I think it was actually repealed in 1912) so we have a limited use for a shorter period of time. The result is that true NE rifles are far more rare than Penn / southern etc rifles though this isn't obvious because they have also attracted very little collector attention.
There are exceptions however. Welcolme Matheson is one as we've already noted with his very different style of stocking. Holbrook used a distinctive eagle escuthceon on the wrist of some of his guns and a silver escutcheon with a so-called "bow tie" design is said to be the mark of the prolific Allen family.
But much of this is still conjecture. For my own part, since I like them, I'd just as soon they never attracted much attention. If they get too expensive I won't be able to collect them so the fact that they are pretty much overlooked is just fine in my book.
Joe P
First, much of the style of analysis applied to Pennsylvania rifles is not transferable to New England where Worcester County was the only major center of production. All of the brass bits, especially patchboxes and trigger guards appear to have been supplied by wholesale distributors. The variations are usually minor and have little to do with the maker in any case. If, as I believe, most were made to outfit militia rifle companies, they were made in batches and, not surprisingly there are cases known of more than one nearly identical rifle marked to the same company (though this is rare). I have a John Mason that is marked under the barrel and in the barrel inlet with the roman numeral XXXII - suggesting there were at least 32 guns in the batch. I had a very late Henry Pratt, made as percussion around 1840, with the numeral 62 on the patchbox lid. There were 62 privates in a Mass militia company at the time and this rifle was nearly unused which suggests, as the highest number, it may never have been issued.
The period of manufacture for the NE rifle is also much shorter than for the Pennsylvania rifle. Realistically it extends from around 1800 to 1842 at the latest. In 1842, as part of a reorganization, the state furnished arms to the militia (something it had never done before) and the requirement that every male citizen from 16 to 60 arm himself was allowed to pass into non-enformcement (I think it was actually repealed in 1912) so we have a limited use for a shorter period of time. The result is that true NE rifles are far more rare than Penn / southern etc rifles though this isn't obvious because they have also attracted very little collector attention.
There are exceptions however. Welcolme Matheson is one as we've already noted with his very different style of stocking. Holbrook used a distinctive eagle escuthceon on the wrist of some of his guns and a silver escutcheon with a so-called "bow tie" design is said to be the mark of the prolific Allen family.
But much of this is still conjecture. For my own part, since I like them, I'd just as soon they never attracted much attention. If they get too expensive I won't be able to collect them so the fact that they are pretty much overlooked is just fine in my book.
Joe P
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Joe sent me more pic's of the forearm. Interesting how Welcome double pinned the long ramrod pipes and placed a small wedge pin between them for the barrel.
Stophel
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This barrel tenon/rod pipe arrangement was pretty much S.O.P. on New England rifles. Mine is done this way, though with just pins and not the little wedges.
Now, if only someone could tell me exactly how they installed those tiny brass stud front sights....I can only guess that they were staked on, but mine shows no staking marks whatsoever. It looks like the little brass stud just grew out of the barrel...
Now, if only someone could tell me exactly how they installed those tiny brass stud front sights....I can only guess that they were staked on, but mine shows no staking marks whatsoever. It looks like the little brass stud just grew out of the barrel...
