Picked up this old 1842 Frenchie, with a past.

[pitfighter]

Picked this up yesterday.

Model 1842 made by St. Etienne, France.
In .69 0r .71 Caliber.
(I'm inclined to think .71)
Back action lock in working order, plate engraved "Mle. Nle. / de St. Etienne."
Many of these muskets were imported for the armies in the American Civil War.
This has the steel trigger guard, not brass.

At some stage, wet buckskin (braided at the edges) was wrapped around the wood partially obscuring barrel and action markings - usually used when something broke or came loose.
Some say that the Indians removed the buttplates to use as leather scrapers.
This clearly still has the buttplate, who knows - a cursory search turns up dozens of originals with their buttplates still intact, lol.
It's on the wall of the office now.

[highpower]

That is badass. I really love those old guns that clearly have been there and somehow survived. That one may still have the buttplate, but I would bet that it was used by the Indians.


And the knife is pretty neat too.

[sealocan]

What? And no range report???



------------

Duct tape: " I can fix anything. "

Wet and then dried buckskin :

" Hold my fire water. "





--------

Wife or girlfriend :
: Why did you take the Rembrandt oil painting off the wall and now have it standing on the floor propped up against the wall?!? "

pitfighter : " I wanted to hang up The Artwork. "



But seriously for a second, all of those items look amazing!

Congratulations.

And you're now also prepared for a fight on The Sandbar,
so you got that going for you,
which is nice.

[SlowDrifter]

That's pretty dang cool. Think it may have been a "trade musket"?

[pitfighter]

I think the leather work is good, but I have boy-scout books from the 1950's telling you how to do this kind of leather work.

Someone took a lot of time doing it, and they did it to a rifle that was then weathered by the sun, so it might just have been out in a cow-shed for a few decades... or, carried by a Lacota warrior at some great battle.

Regardless, it's a fitting little decoration for the office.

I picked up the knife from a maker in Santa Fe, when I was there working. Its dated 1996. His work is quite well known there.

I believe the St Etienne muskets were from Europe for the Civil War, they would have been horribly out dated by the end off the war, so likely surplussed out to Bannerman or someone like that, and then who knows.
The carpet tacks are certainly of the type traders would use, they had some value with the Indians, kind of a con trick.

Haha, Sealocan - Good eye, sir, but, that's not a Rembrandt painting, sadly, it is from the 1700's, based on the Robbie Burns poem.

Tam O'Shanter had been drinking at the pub, he crossed the moors to get home.
He saw witches dancing around a cauldron in an abandoned churchyard.
One young one came out, wearing a tight shirt, over large breasts.
In the old Scottish "tongue" the day he said out loud, tight shirt! - or "...Cutty Sark..."
The witches heard, knocked over the cauldron, setting fire to the Church and chased him.
As he crossed a bridge, the young Witch grabbed his Horses tail, and ripped it right off!



Look up "Cutty Sark" - the Indian Tea Clipper (ship) has the big breasted, tight shirt wearing, horse-tail stealing, gal carved as her figurehead.
Or even the Whiskey, or the Scottish hat, the Tam O'Shanter named for Tam of Shanter, the location where this poem took place.

[sealocan]

I'm giving this a bump up to the top because Calguns gets lots of interesting threads about what guns should become wall hangers and what guns can be saved or occasionally there's threads of someone who buys or inherits a gun, and they want more information about it, but instead they find out right here the sad news that it should become a wall hanger.

But pitfighter's rifle and knife in this thread are so very different than those. This knife and rifle combination are the finest "wall hangers" / art, that I can ever remember seeing here.
But maybe that has something to do with my personal tastes and from enjoying the American history of that time frame.

What do guys think?
Can anyone remember better wall art guns being shown here???

If you do, how about a link or post your photo if you can got something is nice or is close to this pair right here.

It's also cool that the two items match each other in quality and their approximate time frame. ( I think that knife design was earlier but it still could have been seeing daily service when the rifle was getting its leather ( Indian camo ) wrap.)

And now I also know the back story of the words cutty sark comes from as well.

Thanks pitfighter, for always having the good stuff,
And the cool pictures to go with it.

I think we all appreciate it when those few members here who have collections share images of things our whole group here might think of is artwork.

[pitfighter]

Hah, cheers, Sealocan,

Kind words about the gun/musket much appreciated.

I think they wrapped them when the wood was starting to split, or come away from the metal. Though Comanche camo wrap is a cool conceit.

[sbo80]

Sorry the image is so poor, it's the only one I have - my grandfather has this on his wall. Hard to date, it's percussion but I have no idea if it was "converted" from an earlier flint. There's no markings or names or anything. My grandfather has always called it a "kentucky boy's rifle". I'm not sure where he got that idea from, I'm no expert in that era but the stock shape is of the european style, not the kentucky style. But it's definitely extremely short, and apparently always was that way, the ramrod is correctly sized. The stock is far prettier than the picture with nice striping. One day (though hopefully not soon) this will be on my wall as well.

[pitfighter]

That is a nice piece.
A short Kentucky rifle is kinda rare, maybe for packing on a mule.
Or for loading in a tight space, or just a damaged barrel fixed by shortening?
Eitherways a nice family heirloom, for sure.

Revolver on the left is one I never really got to the bottom of.
A Mexican copy of a Colt's First Model Dragoon.

Colt site says 1848 for the serial number.
(They likely copied the serial number from a real Colt.)
Screws are old not machined or modern, same for the springs, but, nothing is quite right about the rest of it.

I'll keep it, as the action is like clockwork, and to sell it would be sort of a shame.
It's not a real First Model Dragoon, and it's not an Italian Replica, its somewhere vague in between the two.

For historical displays sometimes the fakes (brevettes) are fun.
The Colt 1860 pattern Army on the right is an original one.