I tend to side with Mark Twain, here, that "[e]ducation is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty." With any unsigned rifle, we are left with a guess, but hopefully an educated one at that. I am hearing a lot of conclusions, here, as we often tend to do, but I think it is important to walk through the analysis of how we arrive at the conclusions. To answer Wayne, this rifle seems late, with its decoration, for a flintlock piece. Thus, I tend to think it is reasonable to conclude that this rifle started out as a percussion (and will likely return to that state within a few months). I am still not comfortable with a Laudenslager attribution. Yes, there is a Laudenslager inlay and patchbox finial, but a patchbox finial and inlay is not enough. The "arrow" inlays and number of inlays pushed me in the direction of Huntingdon County when I first viewed the rifle, and the patchbox, "Indian" inlay and "Charles Baum" mustache sideplate (here, with piercing and an odd shape at each end) pushed me back east to Snyder County.
The Lewisburg show this weekend provided me with an opportunity to pick many minds about this piece and I heard an attribution that sounded quite interesting to me...Peter Smith (a maker with an Upper Susquehanna start and a relatively prolific career in Huntingdon County). There are signed Smiths with similar inlays, including the man/Indian. Then, again, there is at least one signed Siegfried piece out there with an "Indian" and ax to the side. Wetzel and Frock each built at least one rifle with an eagle patchbox finial. We know about Laudenslager and we can't rule out others. It is unfortunate we did not discuss all of the possibilities. Unless it is signed, we are left in miserable uncertainty.
