Questions about original horns and flasks Pics on two I just picked up

[chrisfoot]

New member.  Just built my first rifle.  Traditions (didn't want to try my beginner skills on a chambers yet, but that one is next).

Here it is.
 

Shot it for the first time last week.  Went boom each time so I was happy.

 Went to an antique mall.  This guy had at least 40 old muzzleloaders.  Both flints and percussions.  He was in Ligonier PA.  Saw some old original "Bedford Style" flintlocks.  Looked like small caliber.  You could tell by the fairly drastic drop in the stocks. They looked very old but I'm new at this.  Opened up the patchboxes on the Bedford styles and they looked like it was cut out with some rudimentary tools.  But still smooth though...

He also had about 40 very old looking brass powder flasks.  And he had a bunch of horns.  All sizes.  Some were flat, others looked more like traditional horns.   The flat ones were interesting looking.  Horns, but flat.

I picked these two up.   Is there any way of dating these?  Be kind of interesting to get a range maybe. 








This one was fairly small in size.  Maybe for a pistol?

[skillman]

chrisfoot

I'm gonna take a shot and say roughly 1820 for both.
The large horn seems to have a factory made butt with embossed rope on it. It may be a factory made horn from Lancaster county. could be 20 years older or newer.
The smaller horn, a bag or pocket horn? is much harder to date. It has tacks holding the plug in which I would say is latter.
It is very hard to tell much for sure with only pics to go by. You need someone in your area with experience to look at these in person. Only then could a good estimate be come up with.
Steve

[Tanselman]

The larger horn with the stamped "rope" design in the butt plug, and turned spout on the small end, is a Lancaster horn, probably from the percussion era in the mid-1830s to 1840s. The brass tacks are later decoration put on the horn by an owner.

The smaller horn with faceted spout tip appears earlier. The photos are a little too fuzzy to see if there is any type of hole in butt plug that would indicate a strap attachment at one time. Assuming there is no hole, and it was a bag horn, it might be from the earlier flintlock period... but this type simple horn was made over a lot of years back east, flint and percussion eras, so you will probably never know when it was actually made.  Shelby Gallien

[chrisfoot]

Thanks a lot for the responses!   I have always been a history buff so it is cool to hold something that old in my hands.