Gun guys! How old might this be?

halfdime · Jun 21, 2014

Last week I posted, among a few other items, an 1838 large cent from an old homestead in the neighborhood where I grew up. Before I started, another neighbor told me about the "musket" found on the property I was about to do. Today, I went over to do some more detecting and some of the surviving family was there. The father died just about a month ago; it was he who found the gun in question. One of the sons-in-law went to a shed and pulled it out to show me; I was duly impressed. I was a history major and don't know much about guns but I can appreciate the history of most artifacts. I was happy to see it, but I didn't do cartwheels; I figured the gun had to be at least a hundred years old, probably more, so I appreciated it from that perspective and thanked the host for showing it to me. He put it away and came back out a few minutes later and gave it to me! That was the furthest thing from my mind when I first saw it; I certainly didn't covet it or hold it tight to my chest. Evidently, the deceased had found it while digging for some project in his yard; there was an old homestead a few hundred feet away and we figure that anything "older" was associated with it. For example, the 1951 Washington quarter found there today wasn't :laughing7:

. Is this today's find? No. Could have been, had it not been found already :tongue3:

. I hope the pictures help with identification.

l.cutler · Jun 23, 2014

NOLA_Ken is correct about the conversion, it is a Belgian conversion. The hammer has a twist to center it over a nipple threaded into the top of the barrel. I am still unsure of what type of musket it was, the lockplate shape does not appear correct to be a US 1816, but I suppose the rust may be making it look off. Whatever it was, it definitely started out life as a musket and was shortened.