Tower black powder (need help with identification)

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tower

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I have a tower black powder percussion musket that is proving a handfull to identify. I have been searching the internet and have found nothing that is exactly the same as this musket. First of all the TOWER name is behind the hammer instead of in front of it. The crown and GR stamp are in front of the hammer with a heart or an arrow by the crown there is also either an 18 or a B. There are no other markings on the lock plate. There is two marks on the barrel and they are a crown with a GJ below it and what appears to be a bomb with two swords crossing below it. There are several marks on the stock most of them are unreadable. The stamps are as follows ib or an lb with an 88 turned side ways below it, a BO with an arrow which I believe means BOARD OF ORDINANCE, A k&a, a heart by itself, and two stamps and an astericks behind the stamps. Also where the nipple for the percussion cap goes into the barrel is different then an y I can find. The nipple is apart of a fitting that looks like it turns into the barrel. The guns I have been able to find on the net have a hump on the barrel that the nipple screws into.
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no sling bar but there is a hole going through the trigger guard for a sling. I don't think the barrel has been cut off because the steel ramrod just reaches the bottom of the barrel. The part that puzzels me is that there is no date stamp or caliber size on the musket.
 
Military weapons hardly ever have calibre markings. Date stamps aren't a given, either. It could be a period fake, too. Many locks were marked with "TOWER" to give the impression of high quality, as British weapons were known worldwide for their quality. The type of percussion conversion you describe was commonly used in North America, I think it was called the "French type conversion".
 
Without photographs of the proofs and the gun overall, identification is merely wild guessing. If the barrel marks were GR and a crown over crossed maces, it would make a lot more sense; are you sure that you are correctly interpreting what you are looking at? My impression of what you are describing is of a Brown Bess which has been converted to make an inexpensive fowling piece.

cheers mooncoon
 
I have tried to add pictures. At the bottom of the page it says that I may not post attachments?? Can someone tell me how to do this.
 
tower said:
I have tried to add pictures. At the bottom of the page it says that I may not post attachments?? Can someone tell me how to do this.
Click to expand...

do a google search for Photoshop, go there and register (it is free). You save your photos in photoshop then copy and paste the image link into your posting.

cheers mooncoon
 
the lock is a converted bess flint lock. the percussion hammer is a crude conversion from the original flint #### and metal has either been welded on or the original jaw perhaps reshaped on the forge with the odds on being welded on and forged. You can see the plugged screw hole from the original frizzen. Hard to see the barrel proofs clearly but one is a Birmingham proof (crown over crossed maces) and the other I am guess is a crown over GR with the GR poorly struck. The gun appears to be a crude conversion to a percussion fowler from a bess and the lock appears to be a pre 1809 lock because the hammer appears to be modified from a pre 1809 gooseneck ####

cheers mooncoon
 
Thank you for your effort in itentifying this piece for me. AAny idea why it is do short?? Has it been cut down??? Is this musket worth anything??? Any idea what the heart sumbol stamped into the stock means, or the K&A which is stamped behind the trigger guard. The proof marks are there but unreadable
 
The East India trademark was a heart with a cross through the middle and the letters V at 12 oclock, E and I at 9 and 3 oclock and C at 6 oclock. Sometime around 1800 that symbol was changed to a rearing lion holding a small globe in its front paws. Re the ####, the brown bess #### and also the East India one was a gooseneck #### but on the bess at least and presumably also the EIC one, in 1809 that was changed to a reinforced ####

cheers mooncoon
 
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