Help me ID an very old gun(1390)Time sensative.

I would pass.

Antique firearms is a very exclusive collector's market. 99% of the surviving examples are known and in a collector's hands. These weapons are uniquely hand crafted, from the forge to the shooter's hand. The chances of finding anything other than an artificiallyaged reproduction at a flea market is next to infintessimal. Do not think that you cannot be fooled by fakery, experienced collectors often are fooled. The easiest way to fake age to the uninitiated is to soak the thing in saltwater for a year to rust it up really well. Consider if you will.......If the not gun savy flea market seller had found this piece, he would be removing rust and corrosion to search for markings........Instead, he's leaving it on there. This is not the usual way things happen. He's leaving the rust on there because he already knows what's underneath.......Because he put the rust there.

Finally, the value of these guns is driven by condition as well. If a gun is an unknown rusty hulk, it's not worth much, regardless of it's age.

First thing I do when I see a thread with a pic is to click on that pic before reading...well, your picture looks like the gun that comes standard issue to 50% of the people walking around on this planet! I thought it was some sort of joke.


As to the actual item, if it is too good to be true, it probably is. I don't care what it is, if it is an antique bell ringer, a blue cheese roller, or what, a date of 1390 makes it VALUABLE. Anything that old is rare rare rare rare rare. The fact that it hasn't been immediately snapped up, or is even at a fleamarket tells me that the 1390 number has nothing to do with the year.

Think about it and look at those numbers, guess what, the way people drew numbers in 1390 don't look just like they do today (ever read an revolutionary war era document an see George Wafhington? they make lowercase S look like an f with a backflurl in those days) Do the numbers look standardized? Remember, this is about 100 years BEFORE the first printing press...and that was for making marks on paper...so do the numbers really look uniquely hand carved or moulded, or do they look 'normal' because face it, we just aren't used to looking at anything that isn't designed to make that same mark over and over and over...except for possibly signatures on our credit card recipts


It's probably a tublular device from an 1920's-50s era tractor, maybe the PTO shaft cover from a 1380 john deere or minneapolis-moline, got left out in the rain for 50 years, maybe some kid made a cannon to play pirate ship with long ago.

However, it is most likely as sucker peice, handmade by the guy at the fleamarket, designed to seperate fools from their money.


Why the hell would someone bother to make a big year date and have it on the gun? To make it convenient for 700 years later? take a look at what information they WERE putting on cannons say 300 or even 500 years ago. The name of the king who commissioned them, some statement of divine authority about smashing your enemy etc etc. Date might have been included just in passing, but that is it.

I don't think matchlocks were around until sometime around 1450 or 1475. I could be mistaken though.

I'd buy it. Twenty or thirty bucks or so absolute tops.

Sounds to me like the date is possibly 1590, not 1390. The broad sweeping bottoms of these two numbers could be confusing. The ball end of the stock was fairly common then. I have a couple of pics of wheelocks of this period with that kind of stock. Matchlocks were more common. There's always an overlap in technology advances. After all some of us are still sticking deer with arrows ans others are still using that saltpeter-charcoal-sulphur mixture to throw lead out of a gonne.

If it were me, I'd figure it was no worse than dumping twenty or thirty bucks into a slot machine just for fun. And you may find the coat of arms of the Archbishop of Funkeldorff on it somewhere.

It's probably a piece of junk, but maybe a great conversation piece to hang on the wall.

I mean, people still buy rusty old harrow discs and tractor seats from old farm machines and wrought iron-bound wagon wheels and hang them on their walls, right?

But 'sup to you.

I'd steer clear of that, as posted above, why would they spend all the time and technology to put the year on the gun?
this was a practice that started in the 18th century for military issue weapons for ID and arsenal purposes.
and again, as previously posted, hell i'd give like 50 bucks for it for ****s and giggles,

A legit 1390 gun? Nope.

The gonne of the late 14th century was little more than a short length of pipe strapped to a pole, set off by a hot coal held by the operator or his offsider: the matchlock hadn't yet made an appearance. Here's the sort of thing:



Your piece doesn't sound like one of those.It is not impossible that it could be some later design though, but I don't think I'd be throwing any money at it without knowing what it is.

Price it as a decorator item because I very seriously doubt it is anything but that.

It has all the clues of a modern made ,and artificialy aged item ,and that's what it likely is.

In 1390, the only castable ferrous metal was 'cast iron'; this is iron/steel with a carbon content over 2%, which makes it highly brittle. The Chinese did make some cannons from it I believe, but the technology remained in the Far East until about the 18th centrury or so.

In 1390, the only castable ferrous metal was 'cast iron'; this is iron/steel with a carbon content over 2%, which makes it highly brittle. The Chinese did make some cannons from it I believe, but the technology remained in the Far East until about the 18th centrury or so.

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Cast iron was a fairly new technology in Europe in the 14th century, but it didn't take until the 18th century for it to be used by Europeans to make cannon: the Dutch were producing cast iron cannon in the early 1500s, and serial production of reasonably reliable CI cannon began in England in about 1543 at Levett's foundry.

In the case of small arms however, for the first several hundred years barrels were generally made by taking iron from a bloomery and forging it into strips, then forge welding around a mandrel to form the barrel. This wrought iron was comparatively soft but tough enough, if competently welded, to withstand black-powder pressures.

not according to my reading. Cannons of the time were often wooden, bound with iron. From there they progressed to using the same basic technique as was used to produce 'damascus barrels' you see on some 100 year old shotguns. The english towards the end did start using cast iron, but it was far from reasonably reliable. Best cannon of the day were bronze, but the materials alone were very expensive. Also, the technology for casting bronze was really pushed to the max when cannon were called for. For both cast iron and cast bronze, small issues that woiuld otherwise go unnoticed making a cast statute or some other cast item, would be enough to weaken the cannon and cause it to explode upon firing

My bad... I'm a bit more up on production techniques than dates, which is a little ironic considering my course...

not according to my reading. Cannons of the time were often wooden, bound with iron. From there they progressed to using the same basic technique as was used to produce 'damascus barrels' you see on some 100 year old shotguns.

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During the earliest period, up until about the 15th century, it was common for cannons to be made up of strips of wrought iron mainly because the material was available and fairly cheap. It wasn't quite the technique used later for "damascus" barrels though, which involves spiral-wound strips or wire of both iron and steel being forge welded around a mandrel. Instead the early guns made from wrought iron were typically of "hoop and stave" construction: longitudinal "staves" made from iron strip welded together and then held together with hoops of iron to reduce the risk of bursting - a combination structurally much like a wine-barrel. This construction was not very strong though, due largely to the difficulty of making sound welds at such a scale using blacksmithing technology, and quite a number of people were killed when such guns burst. It was replaced by cast bronze and later cast iron, and largely disappeared in cannon-making by about the end of the 15th century or a little after.

Forge-welded iron construction survived in the making of barrels for small arms however, where the smaller scale made production or a reasonably sound weld using blacksmithing techniques a great deal simpler.

The english towards the end did start using cast iron, but it was far from reasonably reliable. Best cannon of the day were bronze, but the materials alone were very expensive.

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The English worked out how to cast iron barrels by the 1540s and were producing them in large quantities not long after. They were far cheaper than bronze guns and worked reliably enough to provide much of the armament on the fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada, and they were also a successful export by the second half of the 16th century. Bronze guns survived in production in Europe largely because the English successfully kept the secret of production of sound cast iron guns to themselves, but they were far more expensive than the iron guns.

Also, the technology for casting bronze was really pushed to the max when cannon were called for. For both cast iron and cast bronze, small issues that woiuld otherwise go unnoticed making a cast statute or some other cast item, would be enough to weaken the cannon and cause it to explode upon firing

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That is true enough, and this was also an issue with the production of bells, which used similar technology - your Liberty Bell for example. It took a while to gain an understanding things like bottom-up pouring, gating, shrinkage etc, and it is certainly true that cannons continued to pose something of a risk to their operators right into the 19th century. By about the 16th century however they posed a far greater risk to the enemy