Wheel-lock petronel with ramrod

Wheel-lock petronel, the barrel of round section, the surface darkened and coarsely chiselled with conventional flowers and foliage encrusted with silver. The barrel has probably been shortened and adapted.

Lock with external wheel, the surface of the lock-plate decorated en suite with the barrel, and the lower edge is rounded to the shape of the wheel. The release button for the pan-cover catch passes through the screw of the cock which is drilled to accommodate it.

Stock decorated with inlays of antler and mother-of-pearl in the manner employed on the stocks of Tschinkes. On the butt is a representation of a stag lodged, on the sliding butt-trap cover is a lion, elsewhere are hounds, rabbits, a squirrel and grotesques. The mother-of-pearl inlays take the form of fruit and flowers scattered at regular intervals throughout the decoration. On the left side opposite the wheel is a mermaid playing a lute among fine, floral scrolls, and is a modern insertion. The heel-plate is of antler engraved with a mermaid playing a viola is also modern. Indented steel trigger-guard. Wooden ramrod with engraved antler tip.

German, about 1630; stock, Silesian.

This weapon appears to have been assembled from parts of several different pistols.

The encrusting on the barrel is a 19th-century addition. There are a petronel and a pair of pistols by the same stockmaker in the Brahe-BieIke armoury at Skokloster Slott, Sweden (L. Rangstrom, personal communication).