Can anyone here help ID this rifle ? Its a Kentucky style flintlock, with lock plates that are marked London Patent. It It has inlays of fish down its full length of silver or pewter. the rest can be seen in the pics.I have no idea of the year , makers name or rough value.Can anyone school me ? Pau



v

I said I do not know the makers name. I meant to say I am not familiar with this maker.

An educated guess would be Hacker Martin.
Between the antiques and the Bicentennial resurgence, a few craftsmen continued traditional longrifle building, he was one of them.
Don't take this a gospel, do some more research on my guesswork.
And it would be a good idea to find someone to replace the lock bolts and barrel pins.

SDH, it looks like you hit the nail on the head. Any rough guess on value. Are talking $1000.00 or $5000.00 ballpark?

Hacker Martin's rifles are quite collectible and there's a fair amount of interest in them. There was a Gun Digest article on him, although I can't remember the year. My dim recollection is that one of his last rifles was made for the actor, Slim Pickens, who is pictured with his rifle in the article. Given the quality of Martin's work and the collector interest, I'd predict that the price will be a lot closer to $5,000 than $1,000.

Haven't a clue.
You might check the Contemporary Longrifle Ass. site for more info?

one of the foxfire books had alot of info on mr. martin

I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as SDH and others, but will offer a few thoughts.

Hacker Martin was one of the very few who made all the parts of the rifle from scratch. Almost all the examples of his work that I've seen (admittedly, not very many) have had iron furniture and hand-made lock plates. The brass and silver/pewter furniture on this rifle are IMO somewhat unusual for a Martin rifle but the workmanship appears to be fully up to the Martin standard. Please be advised that his rifles have assumed a cult status of their own with some traditionalists and so can be fairly expensive, encouraging fakery.

I have all the Foxfire books and will re-read his section later, CRS has a firm grip these days and I often need a rerun to clear out the cobwebs....
Regards, Joe

Cobwebs are clearing, Foxfire 5 has a very good overview of flintlock riflemaking with many photos and references to Hacker Martin but few closeups of the details of his work. I had forgotten that he had made some miniatures and that he sometimes used others for some of his work including stockmaking, for instance.

I enthuiastically recommend all the Foxfire books but this #5 is possibly the most interesting for shooters.
Regards, Joe

page 263

Additionally I believe Hacker Martin was Roy Southgate's mentor who continued the tradition of the scratch built rifle.

Hammerback - Got to poking around and found a short history
of Hacker Martin. His mill was located near Grey's Station,Tn.
This was also the location of his shop. He did indeed make
make all fittings, lock, stock and possibly even the barrel.
This info is contained in "Supplement to The Muzzle-Loading
Cap-Lock Rifle" by Ned Roberts copyrighted June, 1944. Now
for something interesting!
On pages 527 & 528 is a rifle made about 1942 for Kimble Arms Co., Woburn, Mass. and described as a 44 Cal. roundball flinklock, 1 inch 42inch barrel and weighing 11 1/2 lbs.
The stock contained silver patch box and 30 silver inlays all
cut and shaped by hand with tiger stripe maple full length stock.
Comparing your pictures with those on page 528, I reckon this is your rifle.
Hope this helps. You have a very fine rifle. If you intend to
"make some smoke" have the lock screws atended to by a top smith. You may consider contacting The Muzzle Loading Rifle Assoc. for more info.

Best to you and yours,
Chris

Why all the concern with the lock screws?

Hell of a nice rifle!

Brent

Because locks work much better when screwed into the gun.

Well, I didn't notice that they were missing. I thought, however that it was in reference to screws internal to the lock itself. I'll try to pay closer attention next time.

Hell of a nice rifle though.

Brent

i used to do business with a guy in grey Tenn. he was showed how to engrave by lester smith.smith did a lot of work for Mr. Martin.Martin moved to virginia later on and i think his shop burned down.any way his name is Don Davison he had a shop in grey and built muzzle loaders (really nice rifles) i dont know if he is still around but he would have information on everyone in the region good luck. mc(if you find Don tell him Mark Cooper said hello)

Just a precaution, but I was almost injured by an old blackpowder rifle thought to be unloaded for years. Have you checked to be sure this one is unloaded? I would think twice about the need to fire this rifle as it is a collectible of significant value - not buggered up by range work.

NOT an expert.

However, there is a an OP book about Hacker Martin, well illustrated. Remember that he started building long before the modern longrifle scholarship started. So, you will find some eclectic styling choices mixed together on the same rifle, as he incorporated ideas and materials that he liked from different sources.

As well, I knew an old fellow who 'knew a bit' of Hacker Martin lore. He said that Martin and other ML gunsmiths of the time used old vintage parts: locks, trim, DST triggers that were readily available, taken off of broken or unusable guns. I specifically asked him about Martin's recycling another time, and replied [more or less] "that it didn't take a thing away from his reputation, as he did make his own locks, too. As well, there was no good reason back then, not to use perfectly good vintage parts in a new build."

The old boy was a late fifties and sixties regular at Friendship, and had built some few LR's himself. And, he'd sat around campfires down there swapping lore with the real oldtimers. And, he was always on the hunt for usable old parts, especially good English locks. A sound Manton flinter was cherished, I can tell you. So, while his statement is oral history regarding Martin in particular, even I am old enough to remember a M/L clan guy swapping in a vintage lock to replace some early poorly cast and finished replica lock.

As SDH and other will testify, we live in an abundance of resources for the average guy to assemble rifles from well-made quality mfg's that would have the old-timers pretty happy. Are the results equal to the supremo artistic technical tour-de-force efforts of a Bivins, Gusler, House,SDH, Mandarino and the other members of the Modern Pantheon? Of course not. But a person can buy a decent well-designed, sparking, tuned lock for a relative pittance today from someone like Chambers.

There just wasn't anything to compare to that for Hacker and his contemporaries, of which I'm aware. So, having a perfectly good lock to hand back then, was a real good step towards building a rifle. As most of you are prob'ly aware, parts re-usage is nothing new in the field of building fine guns. ;~`)

ENDORSE Jerry's advice: doublecheck ANY M/L -- old or new -- for loads in the bbl. Black powder WILL fire after a century of being tamped under newspaper wadding, topped with patched lead. A surprising number of those pieces were put away behind a barn door or in a pumphouse, stoked and ready to roar at the next chicken stealing varmint -- two or four legged. As my Black Swamp farming grandfather informed my father during the Depression, regarding tramps and Great-Grampa's habit of cracking a bullet past them on sight, "There's always room for one more behind the barn."

However, the family guns and other antiques, dating back from the post-Revolutionary migration to the Ohio River, and then North after the Civil War, and on thru the 20th Century were lost in the Flint,Mi/NW Ohio tornado of June 8, 1953. The twister got all four family farms and a cousin. I-75 and it's barrow pits run thru the land now.

However, an elderly neighbor in the small town in which I grew up, had a garage that literally was festooned with longrifles, hung from rafters,walls, and benches piled with pistols and other 'old stuff'. It was all just curio status goods back then. Never have lost my interest in those archaic longen-boomers, and their times. Wish the board members who pursue such items,"Happy Hunting
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some useful sites:


* http://www.longrifle.ws/forsale/default.asp?categoryID=all

* National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association -- www.NMLRA.org

* Coon 'N Crockett Muzzleloaders Club -- www.Coon-n-Crockett.org

* Armory Hill Living History Association -- www.armoryhill.com

* Kentucky Rifle Association -- www.kentuckyrifleassociation.org

* Hog Heaven Muzzleloaders -- www.hogheavenmuzzleloaders.com/index02.htm

* The Honourable Company of Horners -- www.hornguild.org

* `Kentucky Longrifle Virtual Museum` of original rifles and makers -- americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d85qehjtvk2auti5n77o

* Cook Inlet Mountaineers ,muzzleloader/black powder shooting club -- www.cookinletmountaineers.org/home.html