This was an early mistake...

...that I made. This piece is supposed to have been an Afghan jezail carbine, allegedly used to kick British butt at the Khyber Pass. Unfortunately, what I bought in my early arms collecting ignorance is a hacky, poorly executed tourist item of recent make.


I share it here not out of collector's pride, but as a lesson. I bought this sight unseen on an online auction - the seller really did not perptrate any wrong doing - the piece looks old, and parts of it may actually be (e.g. the lock), but it's not original, and it was probably never even functional.


If you are ever presented with the opportunity to buy such a piece, here's a few things to look out for:

When I got this in the mail, it was filthy - giveaway number one. Makers of these bogus tourist pieces deliberately dirty them up after they cobble them together to give the appearance of age.

Poorly fitted parts - the lock and mother of pearl inlays in the stock show poor workmanship and sloppy fit - only out of extreme neccessity would an armorour issue a weapon with such poorly fitting parts.

Incongruous parts - the brass barrel bands on this piece are crudely cut from sheet stock and appear out of place on a supposedly "old" piece. The lock and barrel both appear old, and were probably cannibalized from one or two older guns.

Mystery gunk - I don't know what the hell it is, but spurious antique weapons from Asia in general often come replete with this brownish reddish "gunk" in all the seams - like between the lockplate and the stock and even in places where there is a gap in the stock. It's probably some glue cooked up from plants or animal parts, and is applied to give the appearance of age.

Crude markings - the stampings on the metal furniture and the quality of the mother of pearl inlays scream "hack" rather than "craftsman". If the stampings on the metal look like they were made with a screwdriver or an old iron pipe, it's probably a tourist piece. If there is obvious pride in the craftsmanship, you may have a keeper (but not neccessarily - high quality forgeries do exist)

Now, there are examples of these jezail guns out there that are worth purchasing - real honest antiques that may have even seen action. However, I'd bet that most of them on the market are basically junk, although they may make good decorative accents. If you must have one, but from a reputable dealer that speciallizes in antique arms.

Here's another bet - I bet that more and more of these show up at gun shows and antique markets as U.S. and other soldiers buy them as "ethnographic antiques" while deployed in Afganistan and other such places.

With all of that said, this piece still looks really cool in the arsenal hanging - well above eye level...

It's Fish Knife Friday #3!

Here's this week's fish knife!

Repel Borders!

Repel Barnes & Noble, too!


OK, that was bad.

Now THIS piece could have been a pirate pistol. For real (although it probably wasn't). It's original flintlock (not reconverted from percussion). As far as I can see, it's completely unmarked. It's probably a European martial contract pistol, perhaps French or Belgian. The ring on the buttcap suggests that this may have been made for sea service - a sailor would have tied it to his person with rope or a sash. The caliber is about .75, so it's a biggie.

Stylistically, this piece is probably from the early to mid 1800's, and would have been made around the transition period from flintlock to percussion - a major technological leap that was made around 1830 or so. I have this pistol's sister in percussion - I'll post it soon so that they may be compared and contrasted...

Given it's date, it was made and used after the golden age of Caribbean piracy, but it may have nevertheless been used as shipboard defense in places where piracy was still (and is still) common - Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean.

If this was made just for you...

You may already be dead.


This little nasty is a "keris" (or, alternatively, a "kris"). These are from Southeast Asia (Java, Philippines, Bali, etc.). It is said that they were sometimes made for killing one single specific target. That's it. An example commission may have gone something like this:

Guy:"I need to get back at that fellow who slighted me by stealing my pigs and courting my daughter."

Knife maker:"Would you like be to make you a really sharp and sinister looking knife, imbued with the necessary magic to kill that fellow and him specifically, for you to regain your lost honor?"

Guy:"Uh, OK...but only if you put into it your finest craftsmanship using the best available materials - after all, this knife must find my enemy's heart without fail. And I'm willing to pay quite a lot for it".

Knife maker:"OK, come back in about eight months, and I should have your order ready."

So much for the seven day "cooling off" period...

The Wikipedia entry on them goes into far more detail on this than I ever could...


I'm not up on the arcane details of determining age or country of origin - the blade of this one appears to be of much older vintage than the handle or the brass and wood scabbard. It's a bit thin for use as a serious weapon - this one may have been ceremonial or intended for a single use (a.k.a. assassination). The blade has a "Damascus" type patterning typical of these knives. Overall, this whole piece is about 17" long.

It is worth noting how tightly the blade fits this scabbard - the photo below does not really do the fit justice. It fits such that extraction is very easy, yet there is no lateral movement of the keris once sheathed...
Just after this image was taken I snicked my finger with the edge of the blade, so maybe I have to retract my earlier statement about it not being a serious weapon. Perhaps I slighted some Javanese guy by stealing his pigs and/or messing around with his daughter. Ouch...

It's time to be Frank with you...

Frank Wesson, that is. Here we have a Frank Wesson and Gilbert Harrington (aka Wesson and Harrington) Number Two .22 caliber revolver, First Type. It's thought that, along with it's predecessor Number One, less than 10,000 were made.


This little revolver is kind of cool, because the cylinder is bored for seven rounds instead of the typical six. Of course with .22 short, that seventh shot may have made a world if difference in a defensive situation. Let's just say that you wouldn't want to throw down with Doc Holliday with just this...

This little pistol (I say little because its only 6 1/4 inches long) was also made in that gem of a city, Worcester, MA, sometime between 1874 and 1879.

Itty Bitty # 2

Here's another tiny treasure...


The little guy next to Honest Abe is a little tiny bronze cannon, complete with trunnions, cascabel, touch hole, and all. It was reportedly found on the banks of the Thames River in London, England, and was probably an old toy dating back a few hundred years.

Although not a weapon in any meaningful sense of the word, I have actually fired this piece (I know, I know - you "condition" nuts should get a life) with a few grains of black powder, firecracker fuse, a binder clip, a bit of toilet paper wadding, and a cigarette.

It went: "Fzzpt."

And that greatly exaggerates the loudness...

But I had to do it, right?

After that, I wore it for a few years as a pendant before realizing that the true threat to it's condition was my own pungent yet alluring sweat and the risk of total loss by attrition (it was tied by the cascabel to a piece of waxed thread).

It now resides in the treasure chest.

Itty Bitty # 1

Every dog has his day...


Even lazy ones.

This little, itty bitty bomb is no bomb at all. This diminutive specimen next to the standard U.S. penny is a Lazy Dog (alternatively Devil Dog). These nasties were included in U.S. non-explosive cluster munitions in WWII and later in Vietnam. The idea was that an airburst of these things over Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hoh Chi Mihn City, or Newark, NJ would bring a swift end to the war. If only they dropped more of them over the last city, things might be different today...

These little things are still sold by the barrelful at gun shows everywhere. They usually run for about $1.00 U.S. apiece. They are so vanilla that I only include one here as a segue into a series of posts on itty bitty things, and so that I could make a Newark, NJ joke... It's OK - I live in Delaware.

Go ahead. Laugh.