“Beaded” Trade Guns

[jrb]

The Morphy Auction catalog with the Oconnor French fusil lists the beads as wampum with some of them secured in holes by red sealing wax.

[WadePatton]

The Morphy Auction catalog with the Oconnor French fusil lists the beads as wampum with some of them secured in holes by red sealing wax.

I don't put much stock in what the auctioneers say because too much time is spent here questioning and commenting on their errors in descriptions. Auctioneers are not curators.  In this case it may be exactly correct. I just wouldn't want someone to put too much faith in typical descriptions.

I too am interested in these guns, with only four originals, it's a shorter study than most!

[RAT]

I'm 100% sure wampum was never used. That is simply an error on the part of modern authors thinking ALL native bead work was "wampum". Maybe they think it makes them sound smarter than they actually are. Like people who use the word "umami" instead of just saying something tastes good. Wampum was something much more specific to east coast natives. It was highly prized and not used to decorate daily objects.

Clearly European glass beads were used here. I would use what we would call "pony" sized beads, These would be a larger size of seed bead. It's been a long time since I did bead work, but I think you're looking at a #8 or #10 seed bead. Avoid the really small stuff. Historically, I'm guessing they just drilled a small enough hole and lightly hammered them in. Ted Belue (sorry if I spelled that wrong) wrote an article quite a few years ago for Muzzleloader magazine. He described how he added bead decoration to a Japanese reproduction Brown Bess. It's worth finding and reading if you're thinking of doing this.

[cable]

Thanks, Rich and Robert!  And Rich, I would have no problem with that "glue", as there are evergreens around, and charcoal.  But moose manure?  That is quite rare here in west central Ohio.  I would expect Daryl or Taylor Sapergia to use something like that.  Maybe I can scout up some deer manure, and I am sure my Amish friends would let me use some Belgian horse manure...

And, because it looks very nifty, will see about getting some larger beads.  Got a Traditions Blunderbuss kit the other day, and it is going to need some fancy-up stuff.  And the flint lock on it is, predictably, not worth a warm spit.  Going to find something to replace it with, as long as I can get the pan in close proximity to it's almost useless touch hole.  Will probably put in a White Lightening type instead of the little 1/4" thing is has now.  And I believe some serious draw filing will erase all the printing on the barrel.  Then I'll get to play Elmer Fudd going after wascally wabbits.

moose frequently leave their nuggets as presents in our yards here.

if you really want some, once the snow starts to clearr [ or maybe sooner ] i could send you some ina plastic bag in a flat rate box...gratis.

seriously.... just let me know.

[WadePatton]

Thanks for your input RAT.  It's all new study for me, enjoying it.

[Craig Wilcox]

Wade, with only FOUR, you can spend more time on each, memorizing or describing in print each and every little nuance of the beaded rifles.  You can become the WORLD EXPERT on beaded firearms.  And of course, you can just enjoy them and their history.
Really enjoy your input on things, Wade, and I appreciate it.

Cable, I appreciate your kind offer.  I really do.  But, being more of a modernist than most, I do think I will rely on more modern adhesives for the beads.  I did hear of one that uses monkey droppings tho.  Collected in the Amazon basin on the night of a full moon.  Really adheres well.

[Robert Wolfe]

As for seed beads vs wampum I can only add the following. The description of gun 1 above simply says they are wampum but give no backup. Take it as you will. On gun 4, however, the paper I linked describes a bead that came loose from the gun and identify it as a wampum bead specifically. That's good enough for me. They also describe several other artifacts that specifically use wampum beads for decoration.

[RAT]

Seed beads are essentially spherical in shape. Wampum is cylindrical with straight sides. Typically, Wampum beads will be bigger in length than in diameter.

This is an example of seed beads. These are roughly 8/0 in size. They are what we would call "pound bead" or "pony bead" size. It's what we see on decorative beadwork on clothing and other household items. This is what I believe was used to decorate these guns.


Pre-contact Wampum was made from the channeled whelk shell or quahog clam shells. It was either white or purple in color. Europeans later introduced copies made in glass. Here are examples...




Wampum beads weren't used on daily items. They were used on items like the Hiawatha Belt, and on similar belts used in political negotiations.


Applying a wampum bead to a gun stock would require a fairly deep hole. And all the beads would show the hole exposed at the wood surface. A study of these guns shows beads sitting at all different angles. In some cases you see the hole... in some cases you see the side of the bead.

Believe it... or don't believe it... these are seed beads.

P.S.
Trading post gunsmiths were sometimes tasked with adding brass tacks to Indian guns. I believe they also could have applied bead decoration.

Oh... and I found that article. It was in the January/February 1995 issue of Muzzleloader. I had the author wrong. It was written by John Stovall.

[rich pierce]

Gotta decide today. Bright white or bone? Dull the bright white ones?

[Robert Wolfe]

I'm using off white ones. I did some up on a test board and they look very white against the dark wood. I thought they were going to be not white enough until I did the test.

[LynnC]

Rich.

Will your gun be as new or aged a bit. That would make the decision for me.

[Mike Brooks]

I'm going with antique white beads that come out of the dirt after 250 years.

[Robert Wolfe]

Here is my test board. Despite looking like white beads they are actually off-white bone like yours. Against the dark wood they just look white. I drilled shallow holes and used a drop of superglue and hammered the beads home. Fooled around with different bit sizes to get a tight fit. Also tried epoxy but super glue much simpler. The three figures on the right are finished with shoe polish. From right to left: black, oxblood, and brown shoe polish.   The three figures on the left are finished with red wax but the center one has brown shoe polish over that. (One of the beaded guns apparently uses red sealing wax to hold the beads.)

[rich pierce]

Robert, I guess we should split this off into the Gunbuilding section of ALR. I’ll see if I can do that later and not flub it.

[Robert Wolfe]

Here is the lock for my Wilson French style trade gun. I started with a Chambers’ Virginia that was built with a bridleless pan by Chris Evrard. It differs from the original in several ways. I modified the cock so that it has a “wrap around” top jaw (not sure of the terminology….). I did this by heating it up in the forge and doing some light hammering followed by filing. Then made a new top jaw. The second cock shown in the picture is a casting that I got from Rifle Shoppe in case I screwed up the Chamber’s cock. I flattened out the side of the frizzen opposite of the striking face and reshaped the tail. The original lock has exposed sear and mainspring screws that the Chambers’ lock doesn’t so drilled, tapped and installed faux screws. It’s not perfect, but I think is looks presentable. It will look better when it is engraved. The original lock is longer in the tail so the engraving there will be a bit tight.




Here is the Chambers lock unmodified.

[rich pierce]

Looking good!

[Mike Brooks]

Nifty

[Dwshotwell]

I live near the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan and these are the types of guns I like to imagine in use here 300 years ago. Very cool and I really look forward to seeing how the project turns out and learning more.

[jrb]

Here's some glass ones picked up from the surface of a farm field near my house. 200+ years of being in or on the ground and farmed over and they're still bright white. It seems unlikely any put in a gun would form much of a patina, in my opinion.

[RAT]

A friend of mine worked for the Peace Corps in Botswana. He said the locals sold "antique" beads to tourists. They fed new glass beads to goats. When they came out the other end they were "antiques".