THE AFRICAN TRADE MUSKET
‘pre-charged’ air rifle, with Richter Optik telescopic sight and sound moderator. Others saw its potential as it silently thwacked its top £200 estimate to ‘rabbit’s-eye’ at £380.
Someone also saw the social-distancing potential of the early-20th-century, cast-iron ‘tree seat’ that sold on its bottom £400 estimate at Summers Place Auctions on 24-25 March; also a bonzer auction, according to the firm. Okay, it needs a tree in the middle (get growing) but at 212cm ‘wide’ – just over the obligatory 2m – so minimum ‘distancing’ is guaranteed – it is also designed so those sitting on it face outwards, meaning it ticks every government COVID-19 box as well as looking as if it will be very useful in about 30 years time when a tree has grown. Or, for those with dreams of sitting drinking wine on warm evenings under trailing vines, how about an elegant pergola? Eight limestone pillars and an oak ‘roof’: 26ft long, 11ft wide and 8ft high. Yes, trailing vines and plants required, although I suspect many of us will be getting to know our inner gardener a lot better before this is over. It sold for a mid-estimate £8,500.
I had high hopes for snagging a bargain at Antony Cribb’s virtual Arms and Armour auction on 7 April. Fat chance. A 16thcentury ‘Sapper’s’ (extra heavy) German burgonet beckoned. I received a rather good email headed: ‘15 Things we’ve discovered during COVID’. No 10: ‘Men can cook.’ Forged to withstand pistol shot and rocks dropped from castle walls, this helmet will easily deflect an ‘incoming’ frying pan, delivered with venom, when your ‘significant other’ discovers you are the only man in Britain not cooking: full PPE for £720. Bargain!
THE growth of trade between European countries, particularly Britain, and Africa grew in quantity and importance throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Guns, particularly trade guns, would play an important part in this. Indeed, by the early part of the 19th century unparalleled quantities of flintlock guns were being exported in exchange for a broad range of primary goods, such as palm oil, ivory, gold and, prior to 1807, slaves.
There were two types of guns traded to Africa: surplus military weapons being ‘sold-off’ and guns specifically produced with the African trade in mind. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars there were thousands of surplus muskets acquired by companies for trade. Former British military muskets were valued in Africa for their quality, the crowned GR stamped on the lock indicating that quality. Subsequently, this mark would be fraudulently used. As for manufactured trade guns, at the height of the trade in about 1800 most of them were being made in Birmingham, where an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 craftsmen were producing 100,000 to 150,000 African trade muskets a year.
These two flintlock muskets, made a century apart, were both manufactured for trade: one in Birmingham, the other in Liège. Unlike the surplus military flintlock muskets, trade guns were made to the lowest possible price. The Birminghammade gun was ordered in about 1830 by the Royal Niger Company and has engraved on the lockplate its logo of a howdah mounted on an elephant. It also has the word WARRANTED on the tail, a word used to suggest quality, although generally not strictly the case. Even proofing was a bit spotty, with the use of water pressure being used as a substitute for the proper explosive proof method. Every cost-saving measure was used to bring the unit price down; cheap wood, minimal shaping of the stock, surplus military parts and barrels – numerous musket barrels left over from the Napoleonic Wars were used to make trade guns, and England’s first gas-pipe system. As a consequence, African trade guns acquired the nick-name ‘gas-pipe guns’. To further enhance their desirability to the African hunter, these low-budget guns were embellished, as is this one, with brass tacks or inset coloured glass chips.
The Belgian-made example is particularly interesting as it was made by gunmaker George Laloux of Liège in about 1920 for trade into the Belgian Congo. The lockplate has his GL monogram contained in a representation of a bee. It also has the classic large trigger guard and straight stock of a trade musket. Laloux would continue to make flintlock muskets well into the 1960s as hunters purchasing them in central Africa liked and trusted the flintlock. Its primitive nature was actually an advantage in countries without easy access to modern ammunition. This simplicity would be the basis of the flintlock trade musket’s popularity for more than 200 years.
The trade muskets can be viewed by appointment at the Royal
Armouries Museum, Leeds, the national museum of arms and armour. Entry is free. Check opening times at: royalarmouries.org