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THBCommittee of Safety Musket
About Seller
6270 Este Ave.
Cincinnati , OH 45232
United States
With offices in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Denver, Cowan’s holds over 40 auctions each year, with annual sales exceeding $16M. We reach buyers around the globe, and take pride in our reputation for integrity, customer service and great results. A full-service house, Cowan’s Auctions specializes in Am...Read more
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About Auction
LiveSep 12, 2018
This single-owner sale features unique and diverse examples spanning every stage of firearms development from early matchlocks to the closing days of World War II. Cowan's Auctions dawnie@cowans.com
View Full Catalog (466)
- Lot Description
.75 caliber, 42" round, pinned barrel with baluster turned rings at breech, no S/N. Bright finish brass furniture, hardwood stock. The 6.375" long semi-banana-shaped lock terminates in a point and is unmarked. The lock has a short sear with two screws visible behind the cock and a removable rounded iron pan that is fenced and bridled. The rounded swan-neck cock measures 3.25" to the end of the decorative comb finial, with a modern replacement top jaw and screw. The frizzen spring terminates in a long, bulbous finial and the frizzen has a curled toe. The barrel is marked with a depressed cartouche with the raised letters SS, noted as the mark of a yet-to-be-identified Committee of Safety gun maker (see Ahearn's Muskets of the Revolution, p161). The gun conforms to Mr. Ahearn's description as a crude American-made copy of a British Short Land Pattern musket with a 42" pinned barrel, a heavy stock with a thick, rudimentarily formed forend and strangely carved apron. The musket also has the oddly shaped brass wrist escutcheon, secured by a screw through its face that is typical of this maker's work. The brass mountings include a a flat buttplate secured by three screws with a 4.25" tang, a 10.75" triggerguard with simple finial at the front, a flat 6" Short Land style side plate, a 1.25" brass nose cap and four ramrod thimbles. The upper pipe is funnel-shaped, the two middle ones are simple round pipes and and the entry pipe in the stock does not have a flared mouth. The musket appears to be in its original flint configuration in all respects, with an internal camera inspection of the breech showing no indication of welding. The touchhole shows good erosion and in properly positioned with some angle and taper. A .186" wide by .285" long bayonet lug is located on the top of the barrel, 1.6" from the muzzle.
The remnants of what appears to be an "M" mark is stamped on the top of the breech, and smaller "M" marks appear to be stamped behind the triggerguard along the toe line of the stock. At least one other example of a musket by this maker is known with the same "M" mark on the ramrod. The initials JSM are carved in the obverse butt and show good wear, with the "S" and "M" intertwined, a backwards "K" is carved further forward on the butt. Another "JM" is carved on the reverse of the stock and a deeply carved L is present in the reverse wrist. The most interesting carving is the full name Warren Adams carved on the obverse butt. This name does not show as much wear or age as the other initials noted.
No sling swivels are present and an old, iron, trumpet head ramrod, measuring about 40" is present in the channel under the stock.
Very good for a Revolutionary War Committee of Safety Musket. The metal has a deeply oxidized, dark brown patina with some scattered surface roughness and light pitting. Mechanically functional, poor bore, which is dark, dirty, rusted and pitted. Brass with a deep, greenish-gold, "woodsy" patina. Stock about good, showing several significant cracks in the forend, as well as a couple of large chips missing. The stock from the entry pipe back to the butt is in much better condition than the forend and shows only only a moderate amount of wear with scattered bumps and dings, a couple of tight cracks around the side plate, and an area of wood worn through forward of the triggerguard due to poor routing of the ramrod channel. The stock remains crisp and does not appear to have been sanded. Some of the original pins are missing from the forend and some have been replaced by crude iron finishing nails with with a larger hand-forged nail passing through the hole that likely held the upper sling swivel screw. Lock and tang screws are appropriately crude, handmade screws. Overall a very attractive, essentially complete Committee of Safety Musket in a farily high level of preservation.Condition
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