The Lion and the Lamb

[WESTbury]

The Lion & the Lamb Lot#1007- plus many other flintlock long arms. Morphy's Oct 30 auction

[art riser]

http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2019/10/lion-and-lamb-moravian-flintlock-rifle.html

[rich pierce]

That collection is beyond what many museums have. By far.

[WESTbury]

The estimates are far beyond, light years beyond, my budget.

In the write up of the rifle on the Contemporary Makers site, it is speculated that the "IP" on the British bayonet is, guess who, Joseph Perkin.

Were you to add up all the muskets, rifles, bayonets, etc marked "IP" that are attributed to Joseph Perkin, the total would boggle the mind. Actually the stamp is "IR".

[mr. no gold]

Finding the 'IP' mark on colonial/American arms suggests that it may very well be Perkin
rather than Pratt. I. Perkin made the lock for the C. Oerter 'Griffin' Rifle', for example.
I have seen Pratt's name on Short Land Pattern muskets stamped into the ram rod channel, but in no other instances. That is not to say that he did not exhibit his name elsewhere, but that is just my limitation in exposure to arms of that period.
Too, Perkin appears to have been associated somehow with the Christians Spring school and that would qualify him for the bayonet as well ad for gun locks, etc.
Dick

[sqrldog]

Looks like I R to me also.

[Eric Kettenburg]

WELL!  I was all set to buy it, but now as Perkin's manufacture of the bayonet may be in question, I shall have to decline.

 

[WESTbury]

1778-HP Short Land Pattern muskets not made on the British Ordnance System were made by James Hirst and John Pratt. These muskets were lower quality and sometimes included the Pratt second ramrod pipe. Complete muskets were supplied by Hirst, Sept 1778 to March 1779 and by Pratt Dec 1778 to May 1779. I have seen one of the 1778-HP Short Land muskets with Pratt's name on the lock. The reason I did not buy the musket was because the name was unfamiliar. They must be quite rare. See Bailey's Small Arms of the British Forces in America page 43.

Forgot to add that I saw the Pratt marked lock on a Short Land in J. Hansen Jr.'s Southport shop, a place I frequently haunted, in the fall of 2005. Two weeks later the musket was gone.

[mr. no gold]

By golly, on enlargement, the 'P' on the bayonet is indeed an 'R.' The down stroke of the latter is quite apparent. Without going to magnification it could merely be a rust pit.
Aside from Pratt, and associates, there was another stocker named 'Tucker.' This arm, too has the 'Pratt's Improvement' which is a second trumpet mouthed RR pipe just behind the top trumpet pipe. The lock on this gun is marked 'J Moore.' Both are listed as working during the Rev War. It would have been nice if Mobray and Goldstein had included a bit more information on the stockers in their book on the Brown Bess Musket.
Dick

[WESTbury]

Stuart and Erik worked on that book for quite a while. I was up at Stuart's facility in the spring of 2008 when he had just returned from doing the photography for the book down in Williamsburg. He told me he felt like he took 10k photos for the book. My reason for being there was for Stuart to take photos of my 79th Reg't Short Land for an article. I learned a lot that day about photographing muskets.

[spgordon]

Perkin appears to have been associated somehow with the Christians Spring school ....

Not sure if I posted before this 1779 letter from Perkin that I found at the Moravian Archives a few years ago. Check out the second sentence: "William Henrey at Christian Spring wants me to come and instruct him in the gun lock making trade, which i have no objection to if our Saviour orders it so."

[WESTbury]

Thank-you for posting that document, it's a great piece of history, particularly given that it is dated right in the middle of the Rev War.

[rich pierce]

Wonderful post.  Thanks!

[mr. no gold]

SP, thank you for letting us see Perkin's letter. That is a real treasure and it certainly ties Perkin into the ...Spring School and into the art of lock making.
Dick

[Curtis]

I was in the area last week so my wife and I dropped into Morphy's and spent a few hours looking at the magnificent items for sale.  Studied the Lion and Lamb rifle for at least half an hour, what a magnificent rifle!!!!  Many wonderful guns an items on this sale as well as another auction this month. 

Curtis

[spgordon]

SP, thank you for letting us see Perkin's letter. That is a real treasure and it certainly ties Perkin into the ...Spring School and into the art of lock making.
Dick

You're welcome. Perkin practiced this trade in the brothers' house in the Moravian congregation at Bristol, UK, in the 1760s. I posted this (too) many years ago in some thread on this site:

Perkins was a member of the single brothers' choir of the Bristol Moravian congregation as early as 1766. In April 1766 a boy named John Waters (also a Moravian) was apprenticed to Perkin "for seven years to learn the Gun Lock Smith Trade." When the single brothers rebuilt their house in July 1766, they included a shop for Perkin; they were later going to establish a "Ironmonger's Shop," with Perkin as "workman," but they abandoned this idea in January 1767--though Perkin was allowed to continue his "traffic in the Gunlock way." Perkin's "Gunlock Trade" was doing well: the pastor reported that "their Orders increase very much" by November 1766 and by March of the next year the single brothers agreed to "enlarge the shop" because Perkin didn't have "Room enough in his shop for himself and John Waters to work."

[Eric Kettenburg]

Definitely a big 'thank you' for posting the letter and the information.  What I find particularly interesting is that there is specific mention in the notes you provide of the "gun lock smith trade," which as a descriptive is quite specified.  Typically we simply see the term "lock smith" in various records and are left to wonder whether one was engaged in making gun locks, and of so, how often?

[Mike Brooks]

I find this all very interesting. I had always assumed locks with the Perkin name were british imports with his name engraved on them as they are comparable in quality to the british locks of the time. He obviously learned his trade in England very well. I wonder who he apprenticed too? I know better than to assume....

[WESTbury]

All right, who on this Forum put in the $130k bid on this rifle?!!!

Come on fess-up.

[rich pierce]

Cannot confirm or deny.

Just kidding. This could be the last great sale.

[Stoner creek]

All right, who on this Forum put in the $130k bid on this rifle?!!!

Come on fess-up.

Wasn’t me for sure. It could well be that fellow down there in central Alabama. Famous hog hunter!!! He’s big on that Christian’s Spring stuff. Big budget guy! I can’t keep up with him!! This is of course an educated guess on my part, not based on actual occurrences.

[vanu]

Current bid is $130K, next bid is for $140K; with this kind of pre-auction action, sure looks like it might make the estimate next week.

[sqrldog]

Stoner you know that's way above my pay grade.  Now who do you know that has bids in on three different rifles??