Ordering In the 18th Century

[Smd189]

Good evening.  I have tried to research this, but have not found info on the subject.  What was the process of ordering a rifle in the 18th century?  First, was the order always placed at the local gunsmith shop or was some degree of travel involved to work with a preferred smith?  Once the smith was found, what were the options/decisions the buyer had to make?  Did most smiths, make both highly decorative and very basic working models?  What was the typical turn around time?  Why were so many rifles so highly decorated when it was an item used as a tool?  Just thinking about the differences/similarities between ordering today versus 250 years ago.  Thank you. 

Shawn

[Avlrc]

Now that is one heckuva question there.    I am anxious  to see some responses.

[WESTbury]

SMD189,

Answers to some of your questions about activity at some of the rifle stockers can be found in Bob Lienemann's books on the Moravians and Scott P. Gordon's papers Immigrant Entreprenueship covering Albrecht and Dickert. Also, his papers on the Henry Family and William Henry.

Kent

[spgordon]

These are such good questions--and so difficult to answer. Without daybooks or ledgers from eighteenth-century gunsmiths, they will remain very hard to answer.

Increasingly I believe that the Moravian gunshop at Christiansbrunn, which I've studied a lot, is an anomaly. The crucial fact about it is that it was not a "shop" in a village or town that customers could simply visit, as we imagine happened in other places. Many Moravian rifles were supplied to customers through personal connections, rather than a more familiar process by which people would place orders, select a product, pick it up after a certain time, etc. Moravians were careful about who entered their communities and how "strangers" circulated in them. In Bethlehem the store, like the Inn, was placed at the northern edge of town, outside of it (not at the center of it as in a "normal" village or town) for that reason. One would think that they were equally careful about how strangers visited Christiansbrunn. Did anybody ever walk up to the gunshop to place an order? Or to pick out a finished rifle that the shop had produced and had on hand? Maybe. I sort of doubt it.

The Moravian gunsmiths were assets to the movement's mission work--and the master gunsmith typically had an apprentice to ensure that a new generation would be trained to undertake the sort of work that Native people needed and demanded. But there is no evidence that the Moravians built the gunshop at Christiansbrunn in 1763 as a site where products would be made and sold to the general public to make money. (It may or may not have become such a place for a brief time in the late 1760s or the 1770s.) Most of the evidence suggests, instead, that there was not enough work for the gunsmiths--Albrecht, his apprentice Oerter, Beck once he arrives--to do in their trade and so they (Albrecht & Beck, anyway) are assigned full time to other occupations. Typically Moravian authorities are trying to find other things for their trained gunsmiths to do, except during the Revolutionary War when they gather quite a few men in the shop to complete a musket contract that Oerter had secured.

All that said, if you want to read a history and analysis of the Christiansbrunn gunshop, please consult this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6xgwdnx5svkixw/Moravian%20Gunmaking%20Trade.pdf?dl=0

There's a lot of information there, but I'm afraid it will not answer the particular questions that you ask!

Scott

[rich pierce]

Scott, good summary! It does seem there was personal correspondence involved in “new gun transactions”. I do wonder how they handled repair work including restocking. This normally requires talking about what the issues are from the customer’s viewpoint, an examination, followed by a recommended repair approach, and discussion of price so the customer can decide if it’s worth it. At least that’s how it works in a bike shop or auto shop today. Few people drop it off and say, “do whatever you think is best regardless of cost.”

[spgordon]

Rich,

The most detailed information about repair work--in the Moravian context--occurs during the French & Indian War, and in those instances it seems that military or militia officials are just sending arms to Bethlehem & expecting "the gunsmith" (they don't know him by name) will put them in working order. I suppose it might have worked differently in a civilian context, when an individual needs a rifle repaired.



The difficulty of travel & transport is important here, too. Easier to send a letter directing somebody to do something--even a letter and a gun, if somebody is traveling in a particular direction & can carry them--than to travel oneself to off-the-beaten-path settlements such as Bethlehem or, even more so, Christiansbrunn.

Scott

[ScottNE]

Scott, good summary! It does seem there was personal correspondence involved in “new gun transactions”. I do wonder how they handled repair work including restocking. This normally requires talking about what the issues are from the customer’s viewpoint, an examination, followed by a recommended repair approach, and discussion of price so the customer can decide if it’s worth it. At least that’s how it works in a bike shop or auto shop today. Few people drop it off and say, “do whatever you think is best regardless of cost.”

I would tend to believe that local vs. non-local relationships would impact this and make the answers fairly straightforward.  Court and town records provide a pretty interesting picture of life back in the day, who was known to whisper in church, who was prone to overindulging, who needed to borrow a musket out of the public stores for militia duty, who was on the edge of spiritual non-conformity, etc., even in some instances who crossed the street to avoid whom (thinking of an incident noted “A Rabble in Arms” by  Zelner). Even in the most small town places today, we’re more disconnected from each other’s lives than people were back then, and probably, as recently as the first half of the 1900s. So I think people would trust their neighbor to do the work as needed and at a fair price, unless that neighbor was someone well known to be untrustworthy — social credit, so to speak, actuated the springs of local commerce as much as anything else.
Whereas a stranger would likely be expected to show money upfront, simply based on the fact that if somebody skipped town it was unlikely they could be tracked down easily or at all, and why trust a stranger to begin with? But a stranger  would probably still expect the work done as needed and at a fair price.

I tend to think only the wealthy would care to have much say regarding embellishment, and they’d simply look for something stylishly and lavishly done in the accepted style. I doubt many people asked for an “Indian head” for example, or a specific carving,  that was merely a motif and style  that was commonly used in some areas. How many people today care what their car’s headlights look like? Some, but not many. And people back then had far less exposure to “consumer choice” I think, and would be even less likely to have much preference on decoration.

[spgordon]

I would tend to believe that local vs. non-local relationships would impact this and make the answers fairly straightforward.

I totally agree: most 18c lives were deeply local. The difficulty & costs of travel of any sort meant that most people lived their entire lives without ever going far from home or interacting with many people beyond their locality.

Letters, which became more widely used by more people in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, enabled people to get things done at a distance. It was much easier (for some) to send a letter than to travel. But there was no reliable postal service (none at all in most places), so this meant that you needed not only to be literate to employ letters but also have some sort of a network of people who moved around (teamsters, merchants, whatever) that could "bear" your letter. Moravians were extraordinarily linked to such networks and so it isn't surprising to find that people at a distance are writing Moravian friends to obtain rifles. But this is exceptional, not usual.

This is a routine sort of exchange in the Moravian context--which does exhibit how one customer obtained a rifle:

Henry Laurens to John Ettwein, September 1787: Shall I request you My Dear Friend to give direction to your best Gunsmith to make for me as Neat, Light and good a Rifle barreled Gun as he can afford for Five Guineas, with Mould &c.

John Ettwein to Henry Laurens, November 1787: I gave Direction to Mr. Joseph Perkins here in Philadelphia, a member of our Church, and a very good Gunsmith to make for you as neat, light & good a rifle bored Gun with Mould as he can possibly make for the Price of 5 Guineas.

Scott

[spgordon]

I tend to think only the wealthy would care to have much say regarding embellishment, and they’d simply look for something stylishly and lavishly done in the accepted style. I doubt many people asked for an “Indian head” for example, or a specific carving,  that was merely a motif and style  that was commonly used in some areas. How many people today care what their car’s headlights look like? Some, but not many. And people back then had far less exposure to “consumer choice” I think, and would be even less likely to have much preference on decoration.

There was an extended discussion of this on a different thread a week or two ago--and, though I think I convinced nobody!, I expressed a similar idea over there though you express it much better here. I believe that the scrolls on the stocks of so many eighteenth century rifles were no different than the styles of today's car's headlights, exactly as you say here.  Or maybe something on a car a bit more decorative but equally unremarkable. People expected to see some scrolls/carving on rifles but could not have distinguished (or even thought to--that is the key point) one maker's scrolls from another. 

Except in urban areas, after the middle of the eighteenth century, there was very little "consumer choice" in early America--another wide gulf that separates "us" from "them." We have been trained to distinguish between a dozen different "looks" of bicycles or "brands" of aspirin. This simply did not exist and its absence produces a very different consumer experience. "Make me a good rifle worth £5" was probably as specific as one would ever have thought to get. I've never seen any evidence that any eighteenth-century consumer recognized or cared about the sorts of regional styles that we identify today.

[Brent English]

This is a routine sort of exchange in the Moravian context--which does exhibit how one customer obtained a rifle:

Henry Laurens to John Ettwein, September 1787: Shall I request you My Dear Friend to give direction to your best Gunsmith to make for me as Neat, Light and good a Rifle barreled Gun as he can afford for Five Guineas, with Mould &c.

John Ettwein to Henry Laurens, November 1787: I gave Direction to Mr. Joseph Perkins here in Philadelphia, a member of our Church, and a very good Gunsmith to make for you as neat, light & good a rifle bored Gun with Mould as he can possibly make for the Price of 5 Guineas.

Scott

One of the things I find interesting in this exchange is that Mr. Laurens did not even specify a caliber or range of calibers.  Maybe any rifle was a good rifle.

[WESTbury]

I'm with Scott on this subject. i think I've tried to make the point that for most people buying a rifle in the late 18th Century was to obtain a reliable arm for hunting and defense, not for show. The rifles that have survived that look like "masterpieces" were the exception. They have survived because they were not used very frequently and the purchaser maintained them in a high state because of their expense. To Pat Hornberger's credit, he was able to include some less embellished rifles in his Lancaster Rifle book. Most books in print show the same rifles over and over and over again. Quite frankly, I'm tired of looking at them.

[JTR]

Most books in print show the same rifles over and over and over again. Quite frankly, I'm tired of looking at them.

Sort of like All the military rifles/muskets look exactly the same! Seen one, you've seen them all!
 

[WESTbury]

Most books in print show the same rifles over and over and over again. Quite frankly, I'm tired of looking at them.

Sort of like All the military rifles/muskets look exactly the same! Seen one, you've seen them all!
 

Truer words were never spoken John!

Fortunately, my wife has the same opinion about muskets, so I'm able to sneak one or two in the house, once in a while, right under her nose.

Kent

[rich pierce]

I think people would trust their neighbor to do the work as needed and at a fair price, unless that neighbor was someone well known to be untrustworthy — social credit, so to speak, actuated the springs of local commerce as much as anything.

After thinking a bit I agree. Nowadays there’s less direct connection and trust, and maybe we feel expert in some areas. I know nothing of wiring so just trust the electrician to do what’s best. Probably a lot of it was like that. I do a lot of repairs on old but working guns for members of our shooting club. They usually just give it to me to figure out the best fix, understanding they don’t want $400 of work on a gun worth about that. 

[smart dog]

Hi,
So why were so many of these "masterpieces that were never used" converted to percussion?  Kent, I think you misinterpret Scott's statement.  He wrote that the scroll work and carving were like headlights on a car, something expected by the buyer.  Therefore, a plain unadorned rifle would be unusual unless the buyer really had limited funds.

dave

[WESTbury]

Hi,
 Therefore, a plain unadorned rifle would be unusual unless the buyer really had limited funds.
dave

Precisely one of my points, the extent of carving etc was driven by the economic situation of the purchaser not the, in some cases, the whims of the rifle stocker. I'm sure that we can all agree that not every person that bought these rifles was in a financial position to purchase "a work of art" in a rifle or fowler. They would have been interested in using it as a tool necessitated by their and their family's circumstances.

[spgordon]

He wrote that the scroll work and carving were like headlights on a car, something expected by the buyer.  Therefore, a plain unadorned rifle would be unusual unless the buyer really had limited funds.

Yes, expected but not much attended to--in the same way that somebody buying a suit would expect lapels and pockets on the sides (it would look odd without these things) but the particular cut of the lapels or stitching on the side pockets wouldn't matter to most. I really think the carved scrolling on rifles worked like this.

This is not to say that these scrolls are not, to us, reliable pointers to particular makers. The differences among the carvings are real. But this does not necessarily mean that anybody recognized these differences at the time. The differences they probably did recognize, I would speculate, amounted to: plain rifle; rifle with standard carving; unusually-fine rifle (perhaps with extraordinary carving). And I'd imagine that within the first two categories all the rifles were interchangeable as far as design/shape.

This isn't to say, of course, that some makers might not have developed a reputation as particular reliable or skilled. Not sure if there's any contemporary evidence of that, though (of somebody preferring one gunsmith over another known one because the first made "better" rifles.)

[Tanselman]

In the late 1790s and early 1800s in Kentucky, eastern firearms were being imported, probably to fill a shortfall by local makers. But part of the reason was perceived superiority of select Eastern makers. Based on "name dropping" back then, the "Kentucky Gazette" newspaper of Lexington, the first and most important early KY newspaper, ran numerous advertisements from local merchants for imported items for sale. Among imported rifles, Jacob Dickert was by far the most frequently mentioned maker, and often the only name mentioned when a local merchant "just received a new shipment of merchandise."  Ads would often simply say "eastern rifles" and perhaps mention Philadelphia or another large town... but when a maker's name was attached to the ad, it was usually Jacob Dickert [at times misspelled] to catch the public's attention. His rifles, whether real or imagined, carried greater significance to potential Kentucky buyers in the 1795-1810 period. After the War of 1812, the importation of Eastern rifles fell off markedly. Shelby Gallien

[WESTbury]

I'm quite sure that we have read in Bob Lienenmann's second Moravian book, pages 102-103, Bob presents some interesting information and Christian Springs inventory entries regarding values of rifles and his interpretation of them. One brief quote from Bob, "but there may have been varying price points depending upon the quality of the lock and trigger(s), patchbox, inlays, carving or wire inlay."

[spgordon]

I'm quite sure that we have read in Bob Lienenmann's second Moravian book, pages 102-103, Bob presents some interesting information and Christian Springs inventory entries regarding values of rifles and his interpretation of them. One brief quote from Bob, "but there may have been varying price points depending upon the quality of the lock and trigger(s), patchbox, inlays, carving or wire inlay."

Certainly price points varied (a bit). There is no way to know what caused these different price points, since none of the inventories mention anything about carving or wire inlays, let alone patchboxes.

For instance: while it makes some sense that "adding" to a rifle something that one needs to procure (wire inlay, a silver star) would make the finished item more costly--does it follow that *carving* would raise the cost or value of a rifle? We think: it took the maker more time so it should cost more. Not sure that production at Christiansbrunn followed that model.

[spgordon]

I'm quite sure that we have read in Bob Lienenmann's second Moravian book, pages 102-103, Bob presents some interesting information and Christian Springs inventory entries regarding values of rifles and his interpretation of them. One brief quote from Bob, "but there may have been varying price points depending upon the quality of the lock and trigger(s), patchbox, inlays, carving or wire inlay."

Here's another thing: the Christiansbrunn gunshop inventories are not price lists. These documents mean to assess the value of everything in the shop, from finished rifles to parts to tools. (This is because it was a church-owned shop.) So A: We don't know what these rifles actually sold for. Maybe for the same price? Maybe more? And B: Maybe a rifle produced in 1770, valued at £4.5, remained in the inventory at that price for years until it was sold. Maybe the identical rifle, produced in 1775, would be valued more because the cost of the materials rose? So: two identical rifles in the same inventory priced differently.

[WESTbury]

All excellent points Scott, thanks. Bob was referencing the inventories exactly as you say.

I wonder, if at Christiansbrunn, the goal was maybe not to have a large profit margin on each piece sold or to perhaps just not loose money on each transaction. I do we know what their philosophy was on profit.

Kent

[spgordon]

All excellent points Scott, thanks. Bob was referencing the inventories exactly as you say.

Well, maybe. Bob suggests (as in the quotation you used above) that, because the prices of rifles differ in the inventories, the Christiansbrunn shop was producing rifles of different quality. This may be the case, but I'm suggesting some other possibilities.

I wonder, if at Christiansbrunn, the goal was maybe not to have a large profit margin on each piece sold or to perhaps just not loose money on each transaction. I do we know what their philosophy was on profit.

The Moravian settlements at Bethlehem and its satellites were concerned about profit but they were not uncomplicated capitalists. They were very concerned not to damage their reputation among their neighbors by charging excessive prices--and this led them to charge less, often, than the prevailing prices. Moravians disdained individual accumulation of wealth and organized their communities to ensure that profits did not flow to individuals but instead to the community itself. So the Moravian community certainly aimed to make a profit on its many trades (gunsmithing being among the tiniest) because it needed this profit to undertake the many things it valued--including, early on, mission work to Indigenous people; purchasing the many things that the community could not produce itself; extensive travel, which was expensive; building projects; etc. But the community adopted a wide range of practices that limited profits, both those that would have benefited the community and those that could have enriched individuals.

[Craig Wilcox]

Interesting discussion about interesting times.  Little or no mail  service, none of those infernal telephone devices.  Walk or ride a carriage or a horse.  And except in the larger cities, little or no advertising other than word of mouth.  Makes one wonder how things ever got done.

One mention early on in the discussion:  A gentleman requested a rifle be made for 5 Guineas.  Now, when young, I had to learn to do the addition, subtraction, multiplication, of pounds, shillings, and pence.  Still have a few scars on the backs of my hands to "imprint" how to do it correctly.

And we had mention of Guineas, being 21 shillings versus the 20 shillings to the pound.

But - WHY?  Why were Guineas used?  Just about as easy to write 2 pounds, 2 shillings, as to "2 Guineas".  And to be honest, while I was in England I never saw a Guinea note.

I did enjoy the British monetary system.  In my mind, it was more flexible that the current decimal system.  Imagine, farthings, ha'pence, tuppence, thrupence.  And of course, the six pence of noted song.  Made it a bit more difficult to add or subtract, to be sure, but there was a wonderful beauty to that system that is lacking today.

Tuppence for your  thoughts.