I Cook Taunton

[Steppenwolf]

Seasons Greetings,

I have acquired this Cook fowler and are considering restoring it.   There are a couple of things that stump me.  The stock ends 12.5" from the muzzle and the wedding band is 21.75" from breech.   It seems like an odd place to put the entry pipe and wedding band.   I believe it is a converted flinter, the bore is .775, the barrel is 35" with post 1813 Birmingham proof and view marks.   Any ideas suggest, heck even raspberries, appreciated.

[Mike Brooks]

The barrel was originally much longer, probably 48"-54" or longer. I'm a little uncomfortable with the signature on the lock, doesn't look quite right. Is Taunton a new england town? If it is the signature is possibly an add on to make the gun more valuable in the 1930's as an american piece instead of english.

[debnal]

Mike,
Taunton is an old colonial town in eastern Mass. The lock looks much earlier than the rest of the gun.
Al

[Dan'l 1946]

 There is also a Taunton in Somerset England. Don't know if there was a gun building center there. It does appear that this fowler has been hacked up some.
                             Dan

[Feltwad]

No  Cook for Taunton Somerset England ,the gun is  most likely a Birmingham export , full stocked and flintlock with the names added at a later date
Feltwad

[Collector]

Did some idiot actually stick weld an under-rib to the end of the barrel??  This poor girl has been messed with for sure.  She needs a lot of care.

Good luck on your endeavor!

[Mike Brooks]

No  Cook for Taunton Somerset England ,the gun is  most likely a Birmingham export , full stocked and flintlock with the names added at a later date
Feltwad

BINGO! A man named Teff was involved in the enraved names on this gun in the 1930's.
The lock is much earlier than the gun but I believe the gun was built with it. Sort of a "new old stock" sort of thing. Probably not unusuall for a low end large bore market gun like this.

[Steppenwolf]

The lock is about the size of a short land.

[JV Puleo]

I think the name was Teft. He worked in combination with Kimball. Here in NE we call them the Kimball-Teft fakes. I don't think this is one of them because Teft was a skilled engraver and all his "signatures" look alike. When I see something like this I usually look at the 1st edition of Gardner, the source for many of the names. Unfortunately, this one isn't in there but I still suspect its the product of a copy-cat "gun improver" of the 20s or 30s.

The real limiting factor with lock markings is that the plates were surface hardened when they were new. They had to be marked before they were hardened, which effectively means they had to be marked in England. This marking is much too crude for that. Sometimes the hard layer was so thin it wore away but I suspect the "Teft-types" simply annealed the lockplates before they marked them. They weren't interested in how the lock worked... just how it looked.

I suspect this is, as Feltwad has suggested, a fairly late, cheap B'ham export gun, possibly made with a left over commercial Land Pattern style lock... improved for sale here quite a few years ago. At this remove, guns like this can be coming out of an "old estate"... "belonged to my great-grandfather"...etc. and still be questionable.

[Steppenwolf]

Here is a photo of the workings of the lock and an enlargement of the "Cook Taunton".   In the Index of British Gun Lock Makers, by J.E. & S.J. Gooding, there is a "Cook, George, Birmingham, Gun Lock Maker, 1730, [SGC03]".   The reason I mention this is that the "I Cook" is quite sloppy compared to the "Cook Taunton" engraving.





Thanks for all the assistance and ideas:-)