English? Jaeger with Ketland lock.

[Hlbly]

Nice old Jaeger with Ketland lock. The lock has not been changed. I repeat for all the naysayers out there, the lock has NOTTT been changed. Ramrod pipes have been bushed with leather for a metal ramrod. Drum and nipple conversion. About 66 cal.

[Eric Kettenburg]

That is very interesting.  There were German-type rifles stocked in Britain for American 'special ranging' service as early as the F/I War.  One of the books put out over the last 10 or 15 years went into some detail on this - it might have been one of DeWitt Bailey's.  I have an old friend who has a very similar rifle in original flint, although with an earlier British lock, probably F/I era, beautiful lock.  Are there any British proof markings on the barrel anywhere?  My friend's rifle looks almost identical with big step-stock architecture, wood box, carving etc. but with a 1750s era fine Brit lock and a short little octagonal rifle barrel, but with Brit proofs.  Essentially a German military rifle made in Britain.

[Hlbly]

I haven’t had the barrel out to look for proofs. I have a bad tremor and am not able to do that safely. It is a grand old gun with an interesting past.

[Eric Kettenburg]

My friend's gun has the proofs very visible on the oblique flat opposite the lock side.  That's where I would expect them, but who knows what's on the underside of this gun.  I think that it's a really interesting piece.  I would love to take that thing apart!  And get a real close look at the wood, too.

[Hlbly]

I will have it at Tim’s show in Front Royal next month.

[Pukka Bundook]

I'd like to see some overall views, if possible, hlbly. 
I like what I see, plus it has a Brandenburg type guard, one of my favourites. 

[Hlbly]

I will try to post full length pictures tomorrow.

[Hlbly]

Here is a couple of full length pictures. Barrel is 33 inches, 1.360 at breech, 1.170 at the smallest, and 1.200 at the muzzle, 66 caliber.

[JV Puleo]

How is the lock marked? Does it say simply "Ketland" or "Ketland & Co." That may help in dating it. None of the German-style rifles supplied for the Revolution and earlier were Ketland products but German-style rifles enjoyed a brief spurt of popularity in Britain, perhaps as a result of their use in America. The F&I War is almost certainly too early for a Ketland gun and it is very unlikely that Thomas K was supplying loose locks that early. He could, however, have made the whole gun. I'd love to get some good high res photographs for my Keltnad book. I'm on Chapter 3 right now, dealing with the early products of Thomas Sr. If the lock is simply marked "Ketland" it would fit in that chapter.

Proof marks would be interesting but they aren't necessary. British law at the time did not require proof outside metropolitan London. Most guns were proved but for some reason, rifles seem to lack proofs fairly often. It almost certainly pre-dates the Birmingham proof house so if TK make it, and it was proved, it would have Birmingham private proofs or London proofs. In both cases, this early, they are nearly never under the barrel. The whole purpose of proof was to be visible.

[hanshi]

That's a very nice old rifle and something of a mystery.

[Hlbly]

Lock is marked W KETLAND, does not have the &Co. Picture added.

[JV Puleo]

That's very interesting. The mark "W. Ketland" cannot predate 1801. Until then he was a full partner in the Thomas Ketland firm. The story that his grandfather was a gunmaker, also named William, is completely false. (The grandfather, who was named William, died before WK was born.) There was only one William Ketland gunmaker. He set up on his own around 1801-1802. It took some time to untangle his investment in the Thomas Ketland firm which is why the deal wasn't closed until later. He died in 1803 or 1804 (I forget which) and before he died he formed a partnership with James Allport. It appears from his will that this was to protect the firm from the influence of his brother-in-law, Thomas Izon. Usually, WK guns are marked "W Ketland & Co." reflecting the partnership. I have a silver mounted dueling pistol marked thus with 1801 or 1802 hallmarks so the period after he went on his own and before the partnership is very short. This could be a WK lock fitted to an older gun in that time frame. This was not unusual - I've seen a late 17th-century German rifle with a barrel and lock made by a former employee of Joe Manton. If that is the case, would be impossible to tell if the lock was replaced because it would have been fitted at the time by a competent gunmaker who intended it to look perfect.

The British fad with German-style rifles was over well before WK established his own business so it seems unlikely that the rifle and the lock were made at the same time although I am certain the lock has been in place since at least the very beginning of the 19th century.

[Eric Kettenburg]

That's extremely interesting information; the gun does certainly look to predate the 19th century so the replacement theory would seem to make sense.

I posted the pics of my friend's gun here years ago, but I can't find them now.  I only had a couple, and one with Kit Ravenshear shooting it (the owner hunts with it now and then) but it was an earlier piece than this, I believe, with a much earlier British lock.  I'll try to rescan and post the pics, they may be of interest.  I don't remember now if the lock is marked.

[Hlbly]

Replacement theory does not make sense. The lock is 4.78 inches long. I cannot in my wildest imagination see that covering the opening in an 18th century Germanic lock mortise. NO woodwork has been done around the lock. BTW, I took it out into the sunlight and saw a signature on the barrel, F N in script letters. Picture added.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Looks like "F L N?"

[bgf]

That lock looks like it was on from start, actually looks like it was percussion from the start, but 1801 makes that impossible!  Just a really clean conversion?  Short of resurrecting William Ketland the elder, doesn't make much sense if we posit an early date for the whole piece.

Is it possible it was built earlier by one of the Ketlands and converted to percussion by "factory" using new old stock lock plate?

It isn't impossible that the whole thing was (re?)built later in states, maybe for a homesick German customer .

Are there any cases of Belgian or British knockoffs of Ketland work of this type?  FN = Fabrique Nationale .

[JV Puleo]

There are Belgian knock-off Ketland guns and locks but they do not appear on the market until 1816.
The ONLY earlier Ketland gunmaker was Thomas Ketland Sr. who started working in 1759 or 1760. His father, the elder William Ketland, lived in Aldrige his entire life, died in 1759 and was a farmer and boxmaker (I have his will).
The marking is perfectly proper for an early William Ketland product. The Belgian markings are always quite different - and easily recognized.

Could the gun be a "rebuild"? Quite possibly. That German rifles had gone out of style by the time WK was on the scene doesn't mean someone didn't want an older rifle rebuilt. The rifle I was offered years ago probably dated c1690-1700 but had been completely rebuilt with a new lock and barrel around 1820.

The conversion is quite proper... drum & nipple conversions are much less common in Britain than they are in America because there simply was no market for the cheap fowlers and "farmer guns" so popular in America. Most farmers were tenants and would have needed the permission of the landowner to shoot anything above the category of vermin and certainly not deer which were about the biggest game in the country. When guns were converted it was common to take them to someone who was capable of fitting a new breach. I once had a pair of Joseph Egg duelers so cleverly converted that they were undateable until Egg's order book was located and it was learned, from the serial number, that they were made much too early.

If you had a rifle in 18th or 19th century England and wanted to use it, you needed a place to hunt. There was no publically owned hunting land - it was all the property of landowners who usually guarded the hunting rights jealously. The owner of a hunting rifle had to be someone with access to a place to hunt and that automatically put him in at least the category of minor gentry or an employee (such as a gamekeeper) of a landed proprietor.

[Mike Brooks]

The gun stock style and most of the carving seems early, probably around Brandenburg ca. 1750- 1760-ish. The carving at the tang doesn't go with the carving on the rest of the stock. You start to see that type of tang carving on French guns around ca. 1760's and English got into that style around or about the 1780's. The lock has already been covered by Mr. Puleo. How all of this came to be is a mystery to me.

[Hlbly]

In the right light at the right angle, the middle letter of the signature is definitely an L. About it being built as a percussion, the cut for a flint hammer is there, clear and un-damaged. Wood does not appear to be European. I believe the gun was built here around 1800 using early parts and an up to date lock. The smith probably copied the damaged stock that the parts were on. Any of your modern builders know that your parts pretty well establish the style of your gun. A wood test probably should be done.

[JV Puleo]

The origin of the wood is a red herring. The single largest export of the American colonies and the United States through the federal period was hardwood. It was literally tens of millions of board feet over a period of almost 100 years. You can be pretty certain that European wood precludes American manufacture (although that is occasionally questionable since you can tell what kind of wood it is but not where it was grown). It doesn't work the other way around.

Also, there isn't any evidence that WK was engaged in the export trade during his lifetime. After all, he had just set up in business shortly before he died. Under the direction of the Allports they certainly were exporters of guns and locks (I have their wholesale price list from 1812) but those would almost certainly have been marked "W. Ketland & Co.".

[Hlbly]

I am not interested in what everyone thinks it AIN’T. I am trying to find out what it IS.

[Eric Kettenburg]

I don't think anyone can tell you that with certainty because the lock is posing a problem for what would otherwise (to my mind) appear to be a middle to 3rd quarter 18th century German rifle.  The lock appears original, looks like original inletting, looks to have been original flint, and the conversion style appears European.  So at the moment it appears to be a later gun stocked with earlier furnishings - perhaps reused? - in a very old fashioned style, maybe for someone who specifically wanted it that way. 

Joe Kindig's old expression still does generally hold true, that (paraphrased) no gun can be earlier than it's latest original component.  The lock here appears to be it's latest component, and it does appear in the photos to be original.

[bgf]

Crazy idea/question: any possibility the W. Ketland on the lock refers to the gunmaker, not just the lock maker?  W. Ketland must have worked with/for his father for some time before he became (briefly) a partner in the company.  Could TLN be the owner?  I know southern rifles, especially, have builder/owner names in various locations, but I assume Brits might have more rigid conventions?

I was thinking if William built and signed guns while working for his father Thomas, the date of this piece could be pushed back quite a bit, perhaps coinciding a little better with the post revolution popularity of "Germanic" pieces, and also reconciling Mike Brook's analysis of the period of the tang carving, which if correct pretty much eliminates the possibility the rife was made in "Germany" or copied directly from a midcentury original.  Also, the lock(plate) is probably earlier in style than 1801 for British domestic consumption?

[Feltwad]

Looking at the images  my opining although I may be wrong is that the gun is not English but maybe a continental copy , if it was English it would have had some type of proof marks .Although at that time a lot of English gunmaker were using foreign made barrel but these at the proof house would have been  stamped with the letter F below the crown also most were  stamped London on the Barrel top flat . Has for the lock if this gun  was English made then the lock mortice and inletting of the lock parts would have been better. Just my opinion
Feltwad

[JV Puleo]

I was thinking if William built and signed guns while working for his father Thomas, the date of this piece could be pushed back quite a bit, perhaps coinciding a little better with the post revolution popularity of "Germanic" pieces, and also reconciling Mike Brook's analysis of the period of the tang carving, which if correct pretty much eliminates the possibility the rife was made in "Germany" or copied directly from a midcentury original.  Also, the lock(plate) is probably earlier in style than 1801 for British domestic consumption?

WK was born in 1760. By the time he was 16 or 17 it is very likely his father was already out of the business of making guns and become a "gunmaker" in the 18th century English commercial sense, i.e. he was retailing or wholesaling guns made in the local trade. The Birmingham Gun trade worked in an extremely sophisticated manner with virtually everything made and assembled by specialists. The "gunmakers" were the entrepreneurs who organized the production and sold the product although it is virtually certain that Thomas Sr. entered the trade as a gunsmith – the term usually used for a person who repaired or assembled guns (although this is not a hard & fast rule). As is true today, organizing production cannot be done well by someone who does not have a very firm grasp of what needs to be done and how to do it.

In 1792 WK married very well. Elizabeth Izon was the daughter of William Izon, a successful iron and brass founder, and holder of the patent on "hollow ware." I suspect that WK was able to buy into the T. Ketland partnership with the marriage settlement he would have received from his father-in-law. TK had two other partners at sell, William & Alexander Walker, neither of whom ever described themselves as gunsmiths or gunmakers so the evidence suggests that by the 1790s the Ketlands were largely a trading firm dealing in firearms. We have no proof that WK was ever involved with actually making guns although he must have grown up with, and been exposed to the trade, from the beginning.

I agree with Feltwad that the lock inletting is not up to British Standards. Also, the crowned F "Foreigners Mark" applied to anyone who was not a member of the London gunmaker's company. It was not uniformly applied and probably wasn't used at all by the beginning of the 19th century. John Twigg's guns often have it because, while Twigg was a member of a London Company he was not a member of the Gunmakers Company. The Ketlands were Birmingham gunmakers. As such, they were not subject to London proof unless they wanted to sell a gun in London. Early 19th century Birmingham guns usually have Tower private proofs or Birmingham private proofs but these were not required by law. The were a convention, not a requirement and B'ham guns without proof marks are quite possible (although not common).