Repro Charleville musket 1763 ,, This is the musket i brought to Strawberry bank many years ago where the Massachusetts arms collectors, they were less than pleased in seeing.

While ive said many times before im a stamp freak .. i love the manner and fonts of the 18th century

especially serifed lettering .

 

While the Japanese repro's are a good platform from the originals there is always room for modifications , which im always up for those challenges ..

 

The barrel bands being one that needed

rounding out ...

 

and of course "surcharging" basically property markings as well as inspectors marks .

while as fledgling armory and inspectors marks would have been in 1777 and after

 

where a letter was sent explaining men who served their time of enlistment have been walking off

with arms belonging to the state and measures needed to guard against the taking of state property ..therefore surcharging was instituted .

 

Where the order from commissioner of stores ordered that all arms and accouterments belonging to the state where have the surface to receive the (impression) markings belonging to the state ..

 

a rough quote.. but basically the ballpark . So encampments had branding and stamping of equipment when sufficient to mark property.

 

The term Lock, stock and Barrel is born of this .

 

So with a naked bare Musket , i jumped at the chance to learn a trade of the time .

i didn't have the money for a full blacksmith set up or any blacksmith set up at all. but i did make do with other means of enough heat to do small work .

 

I jumped at the chance to learn stamp making a small niche that seamed over looked in re enacting ..

For some time we needed someone to make a property stamp and the company

hired a gunsmith to make us a stamp with the words U.STATES.

 

 

and everything and anything that had a surface received the impression

first was our stocks on our muskets and it looked fantastic . also the the size and style also matched for some of the congress pattern cartridge boxes those received a stamp on the inside as well.

 

But i discovered it still seemed barren ...after reading books on the subject i found more than just stocks had impressions of the U.S. but Locks and bayonets . as well as many other pieces that were not privately owned .all property marked U.S. or U.STATES or in some rare cases UNITED STATES.

 

so i gathered some patterns and made metal stamps with varying degrees of size and styles of serifed lettering of U's and S's

 

While my musket was the guinea pig my first U was good just a hair wide but i was too anxious

with the stamp completed my first impression was a piece of leather which looked great .

then i tried a piece of brass , the lighting was such i could not really noticed that the U

was a little on the wide side.. But i could not wait i grabbed my three pound mallet

and lock plate and scored a good hit nice and hard perfect placement .

 

Then i took my S stamps and placed it more to the left as some picture showed ..these were not done with two figured stamps but with single figured stamps ..however some were two figured .

the finished lock plate look convincing and good . not a deliberate mirror image but something as a respectable copy .

 

The true stamp of approval some years later.. would be at Strawberry bank New Hampshire.

where i was informed a collectors gathering of some New Hampshire State surcharged muskets

where on display

So i had to go .

i looked at some of the examples and i cant remember if they had any bayonets to examine

after talking to some i told them my drive for authenticity and the chance that no one else was doing , i thought i found a void in the hobby and showed them my musket

one collector was actually heated over it ..

 

instead of explaining myself i turned heels and walked away and basically took it as a great compliment .

 

however some time had passed and most for some reason weren't all that keen on the idea of stamping an expensive musket .

 

I am learning not everyone in a hobby is willing to go as far as one can with learning or even being authentic . Some people are just content with interpretation or hobby.

 

Again like with the "Stiles" thang, but its like some New Haven railroad guys are they're content with the one artifact used by the New Haven, but could care less who made the piece, if its complete or if it was or wasn't used anywhere else .

 

The amount and time to hand make a metal stamp was anything more than a passing fancy

as much as i liked doing it my eyesight is failing me i got down to the smallest metal stamp so far 1/8 of an inch . tho 3/32 was the norm ..

 

i never found many people who were as ape over this aspect as i was, so stamp and die making that died too. which is fine since the eyes are failing me anyway.But it was fun at the time and something not many people have been doing.

 

This musket will be up for sale as well.

Actually i remember a CSX engineer who wanted a 1795 Springfield musket which the Charleville was patterned from anyway

Done