AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Antique Accoutrements => Topic started by: Dutch Blacky on February 17, 2023, 10:07:26 PM
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I got a question for the experts who are familiar with antique powder horns: I am in contact with a dealer who offers these powder horns
https://www.ebay.de/itm/185626865487?hash=item2b38392f4f:g:oyUAAOSw6cpjUoiu&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoK%2B5vaoWI1d%2FDfjBFxwTPU2RraDIAAv5%2FTXtJl8Uh81O9JwNshwKY0jiSUkrtKlOhVhPX2n86i0PUY8YnKkpUk%2BHQZty0%2Blb3qm6%2Bynt6f088UWQ7XullUek5WrePkWhQBYZNSuYykhARxibUppmJzhoT%2F2Dhp7dtcbIEMYM3pBlCLqtejs0j04qwt%2B3fPuUqHanlgmLBN4cHoYjDePaTGw%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR47ch5PLYQ
(https://i.ibb.co/5FtgxLB/s-l1600.png) (https://ibb.co/6BV7JFg)
(https://i.ibb.co/gy1nGG4/s-l1600-4.png) (https://ibb.co/Wn9TQQV)
(https://i.ibb.co/fpnDpHg/s-l1600-3.png) (https://ibb.co/bB2bBX0)
(https://i.ibb.co/NVPB24X/s-l1600-1.png) (https://ibb.co/ZLPDzZ3)
(https://i.ibb.co/w7gWj87/s-l1600-2.png) (https://ibb.co/NrCjbfr)
The dealer bought them in England. They are said to be 150-year-old english powder horns. I have some doubts. I suspect they originally came from the former Ottoman dominion in southeastern Europe, and had only been in a collection in England.
What is the opinion of the experts on this? Could they be english powder horns or not?
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Looks like quill work on them. Did they have porcupines in the Ottoman Empire?
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That was my guess too, Dave. I also had the thought of China/Taiwan..
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Looks like quill work on them. Did they have porcupines in the Ottoman Empire?
Not in southeastern Europe.
But there has been intensive trading with India and Africa.
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Never seen anything like them before. The braiding looks like a combination of the same skin that is used on the horn and maybe a rawhide of some sort. The skin looks like it came from a reptile of some sort.
Tim
"Made entirely of natural materials, these two matching large powder horns are a real antique and rarity. The body is made of wood and horn and is artfully decorated with leather. Many decades ago, a hunter once transported his gunpowder in it, possibly that it is also pure decoration exhibits. As a lover of special pieces, you will surely enjoy these unique pieces."
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Not western, and could even be southeastern Asia. The bamboo weaving suggests such an origin. Perhaps the Philipines even? Might include Africa in that sphere of conjecture, too.
Dick
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Looks like quill work on them. Did they have porcupines in the Ottoman Empire?
I once found some porcupine quills in the mountains in northern Iraq.
https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/14012021
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That's not quill. looks like long strands of ???? woven into the leather?
(https://i.ibb.co/9VqJzbG/s-l1600-3.png) (https://ibb.co/dLQS1P7)
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Definitely not quill.
Ron
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The braiding looks like a combination of the same skin that is used on the horn and maybe a rawhide of some sort. The skin looks like it came from a reptile of some sort.
Some of it still looks like the same leather as one used on the cover. TC
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Come to think of it, the Hmong and Montanyards and other mountain people in Vietnam and Laos had single shot ML guns that to our eye are rather primitive. Not sure what kind of powder containers they relied upon, but these might qualify.
Dick
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the weaving material could be bamboo or some type of basket weaving material. Agree it does not look anthing like quill.
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Several years ago I bought a forged 8" fixed blade side knife with weaving covering the grip that looked like very similar. Wasn't sure if it was quill but I bought it for the blade anyway. Showed the knife to several people and they said definitely not quill and probably African. When I removed the grip I found that the hand carved wood core had been burned thru from end to end to accommodate the tang, it was wrapped with black electrical friction tape to bond the woven fiber (not quill) in place. Glad I just bought and repurposed the blade.
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First of all, thank you very much for all the helpful contributions and assessments.
Sometimes I come across an antique on the net, where I get a strange feeling in view of the description. Huh? Something is wrong, but my own expertise is not enough to concretize this feeling. This was also the case with the powder horns presented above. I can well imagine that many objects from the colonies ended up in England, and nobody knows where the stuff really came from.
Thanks again