Third Party Press

Suhl Consortium M1849 Marinegewehr / City of Philadelphia

chrisftk

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Here's a neat smokepole I picked up a couple months ago. These have a neat history and pop up occasionally.

This particular model is a neat study in the dizzying politics of pre-unification German states. The German Confederation (not to be confused with the later Prussian-led North German Confederation) was an Austrian-led attempt to re-establish a Holy Roman Empire type arrangement in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. During the revolutions of 1848, a quasi state (still debated as to how legitimate it really was) called the "German Empire" was declared and began enacting legislation from Frankfurt. One such legislation was the establishment of a Navy for use in the First Schleswig War against Denmark. The navy was referred to by several names (adding to the confusion of an already confusing time), though historians generally use Reichsflotte (Imperial Fleet) The fleet was established with contributions from member states. On June 4th, 1849, the Reichsflotte engaged in its first and only battle at Heligoland, leading to an inconclusive result. When the German Confederation was restored in 1850, the Reichsflotte remained in service until it was formally dissolved by the Confederation in 1852. The ships were sold off and some ended up in the Prussian Navy which was later established after the Austro-Prussian War.

As part of the process of establishing a navy, the officials in 1849 also commissioned a musket and pistol to arm them. After discussions, they eventually settled on a clone of the 1839 Potsdam musket with a shorter (by about 10.5cm) length for better handling on ships. The Suhl Consortium (Haenel, Schilling and Spangenburg/Sauer) was awarded the contract for slightly more than 1,000 muskets and approximately 800 pistols. The markings on these arms were unique; The lock bears a maker's mark as well as the German Empire/Confederation double-headed eagle and an anchor indicating naval service. Additionally, the eagle and anchor are located on the left side of the stock, opposite the lock, and on the top of the barrel.

Upon dissolution of the Reichsflotte, the muskets and pistols were sold on the surplus market. The majority of the muskets were eventually acquired by the City Council of Philidelphia in 1861, who were looking to arm a home guard against potential Confederate invasion. The City hired Andrew Wurfflein, a noted gunsmith, to inspect the firearms. Wurfflein's stamping, along with the Philadelphia marking are on all observed examples of this musket.

This particular example was in untouched condition and likely sat atop a fireplace for many years, as the heat caused some flaking in the finish. The stock stampings are still very crisp. The rear block sight (something the Postdam muskets were known for) was ground off, as was the case with many Civil War Potsdams. I do have a spare rear sight I will likely install if the spirit moves me. The serial numbers appear to match (#16) There isn't much to say other than sharing some pictures.



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Now that is a really interesting bit of history. Not only German Confederation but the Reichsflotte? Lol, that is pretty hard to top for German history nerd stuff. Love the Philadelphia connection too.

When you say the rear sight was ground off on a lot of these Civil War Potsdams, is that something that was done by the people who bought them for use (City of Philadelphia in this case) or by later people for whatever reasons? If it's the latter I could see restoring it, but if it's the former I'd leave it as is, since it's part of the gun's service history.

Also, would this be the final model of Potsdam musket produced? I'm fairly weak on pre-unification firearms, but I think that the final Prussian version (the m1831 - the caplock one) was only made until the early 1840s when they started switching over to the m1841 Dreyse. A whole new model in 1849 would, if I'm not mistaken, be the final version of this.

Finally, these all new production or were they reusing old parts in them. I could well see older guns being reworked into these just based on parts availability. Probably a ton of NOS hanging around as well. That said, I could see a well known design like this being something that the Suhl consortium could spin up with little drama.

Really, really cool gun.
 
That’s quite the history lesson…. Very nice informative write up and cool smoke pole with a lot of history behind. Where do you dig for information on a musket like this?
 
I just wonder how many of these rifles I’ve walked past not giving them a second look. Very interesting and informative Chris. You are the only guy I know who would have a spare rear sight for one of these laying around.
 
That’s quite the history lesson…. Very nice informative write up and cool smoke pole with a lot of history behind. Where do you dig for information on a musket like this?
I looking forward Chris's answer too because I'm always on the lookout for other books on this stuff, but here are a few I know to get things started:

Schwalm and Hoffmann's European Arms in the Civil War has some basic info on these as well as a lot of other stuff. I don't have too much of a basis to judge how accurate it is, but based on what I've dug up on related guns it seems to be pretty OK. Maybe 1853 Enfield collectors look down their noses at it, I don't know, but at a bare minimum it's broad strokes good enough to point you in the right direction and help identify stuff. As a bonus it seems to be pretty consistently in print (or they over-printed and just haven't run through them in years) so you can find it on Amazon for only $35.

Civil War Guns by Edwards is an older book (published 1962) that you can find pretty reasonably priced on Ebay. Glancing right now shows at least 5 copies for less than $20 shipped. It's of middling quality. I would assume there are some significant errors in it just because of how that generation of firearms book runs (see: Ball, Gotz), but it's pretty solid for laying out the broad strokes of the history of weapons development and procurement during the war. He's got a few chapters that cover things like Schuyler's work as a purchasing agent in Europe. Not so much the specifics of the foreign rifles, but it's good for background and can certainly give you terms and people to start searching as you do further research.

As a word of caution there is also Guns of the Civil War by Adler, published in 2012. It has a lot of pretty pictures, but the history is middling. I wouldn't recommend it unless you want an attractive coffee table book.

On the German side of things (both in terms of language and talking about the subject of the guns in European usage) you've got a bunch of Deutsche Waffen Journal articles written by Udo Lander. From what I've been able to tell he's the big name right now over there for muzzle-loading German firearms. Last I saw he also had an identification service where he'd take a look at your pictures and help you figure out what you had for something fairly reasonable like 50 Euros.
Then you've got Militargewehre und Pistolen der deutschen Staaten 1800-1870 by Gotz. It is very thorough in terms of really laying out all the various models used by everyone from the Prussians to the tiniest of states, but I've caught Gotz in enough errors in more modern stuff that I take it with a grain of salt. Still, a great resource for figuring out just what you're holding in your hands when you've got some mystery gun with German looking features or writing on it, and a really good place to start digging aorund and narrowing things down.

I haven't found any more recent books on the German weapons specifically, unfortunately. Much as with researchign more modern stuff the next stop is forums, and a lot of them are going to be in German. Blankwaffen is a forum that mostly focuses on bayos and swords (hence the name) but they have some sections for firearms. Not too active, but there are a few posters in there dropping a lot of threads on their collections which makes it a good resource for identifying things and cross-referencing to double-check Gotz. They've also got some good literature lists of books that I still need to dig into. That's just one example, at the end of the day you're going to spend a lot of time figuring out search terms, trying them out, figuring out what the search term would be in German, trying that etc. to see if you can spot smaller communities. It's one of those things where I damn well know there is a significant - likely vibrant - collector community over there for it, I just haven't had the time or need to really dig in on it. If someone wanted to get really serious about pre-1870 German muzzle loaders, though, you'd really have to start peeking under those curtains.
 
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Wow, that's a fascinating history for what would be such an unassuming firearm to most. And to think that this one survived intact all this time makes it a very cool smoke pole! I'd definitely be interested in hearing some good reference sources so I can start reading up more on these neat muskets.
 
When you say the rear sight was ground off on a lot of these Civil War Potsdams, is that something that was done by the people who bought them for use (City of Philadelphia in this case) or by later people for whatever reasons? If it's the latter I could see restoring it, but if it's the former I'd leave it as is, since it's part of the gun's service history.
I don't have any documentation other than anecdotal evidence for this, but my understanding is that civilian users (or maybe surplus dealers) ground off the rear block sights on these after they exited government hands. My thought would be that this was done to better use the weapon as a shotgun (since many of these were smooth bore). I see it often enough on smoothbore Potsdams to believe this to be the case. I have seen a couple of these Navy muskets with their sights intact leading me to believe this was not a Philadelphia or Wufflein action. Similar thinking around these being a nice budget shotgun also drove many of the infantry Potsdams to be cut down; these maybe escaped that fate due to a shorter overall length.
Also, would this be the final model of Potsdam musket produced? I'm fairly weak on pre-unification firearms, but I think that the final Prussian version (the m1831 - the caplock one) was only made until the early 1840s when they started switching over to the m1841 Dreyse. A whole new model in 1849 would, if I'm not mistaken, be the final version of this.
One of the last, I'd say; there are a couple of minor German states that continued to order new production "clones" of the Potsdam style musket well into the 1850s. Saxe-Altenburg and Anhalt come to mind. The last gasp for Prussia were the 1855 conversions of existing 09 and 39 muskets to a rifled version with a leaf style rear sight. The M41 was deemed a state secret and initial production was quite slow. The rifled conversions of existing muzzle loaders were meant to be a stopgap, but were quickly discarded and surplused.
Finally, these all new production or were they reusing old parts in them. I could well see older guns being reworked into these just based on parts availability. Probably a ton of NOS hanging around as well. That said, I could see a well known design like this being something that the Suhl consortium could spin up with little drama.
There's a chance some surplus parts were used, but I can't say for sure one way or another. The consortium did handle a decent amount of the "clones" previously mentioned.
That’s quite the history lesson…. Very nice informative write up and cool smoke pole with a lot of history behind. Where do you dig for information on a musket like this?
One of the "easiest" sources, as mentioned by Cyrano is Schwalm and Hoffmann's European Arms in the Civil War. It's not perfect, but it's a great survey of the substantial number of German arms that ended up in the US. The biggest issue is that there doesnt appear to be a ton of "real"/primary source documentation. The authors did their best, and weren't afraid to admit when they guessed (unlike some highly published authors). Their guesses are fairly educated though. The price of the book, combined with the details it provides on even minor states like Mecklenburg-Streliz and Saxe-Weimar is pretty helpful. I've got a relatively substantial collection of German muzzle loaders and without this book, my job would be a lot harder in identifying some of the obscure ones. They do not, however, talk about carbines in this book. I've had to buy German sources for those.
I just wonder how many of these rifles I’ve walked past not giving them a second look. Very interesting and informative Chris. You are the only guy I know who would have a spare rear sight for one of these laying around.
Some of these a darn near impossible to distinguish from a regular Prussian Potsdam without knowing the exact details. When I saw the rear sight, I figured i'd better buy, just in case.
I haven't found any more recent books on the German weapons specifically, unfortunately. Much as with researchign more modern stuff the next stop is forums, and a lot of them are going to be in German. Blankwaffen is a forum that mostly focuses on bayos and swords (hence the name) but they have some sections for firearms. Not too active, but there are a few posters in there dropping a lot of threads on their collections which makes it a good resource for identifying things and cross-referencing to double-check Gotz. They've also got some good literature lists of books that I still need to dig into. That's just one example, at the end of the day you're going to spend a lot of time figuring out search terms, trying them out, figuring out what the search term would be in German, trying that etc. to see if you can spot smaller communities. It's one of those things where I damn well know there is a significant - likely vibrant - collector community over there for it, I just haven't had the time or need to really dig in on it. If someone wanted to get really serious about pre-1870 German muzzle loaders, though, you'd really have to start peeking under those curtains.
Google-fu has served me well on some of the more obscure things i've found-- particularly some of the European forums.
 
Awesome rifled musket Chris. Great history on the rifle also. This is about the third one I have seen part of the City of Philadelphia purchase. Does this rifled musket have a unit mark or has it been removed?
 
Wow Chris, excellent writeup with all the backstory in just the right dosage. Probably the most extensive naval thread on the section, and on the 'Reichsflotte' of all things! Always something new to learn in the Imperial section to keep things fascinating. Something I wouldn't even know to look for. A real diamond in the rough. Thanks for sharing.
 
Awesome rifled musket Chris. Great history on the rifle also. This is about the third one I have seen part of the City of Philadelphia purchase. Does this rifled musket have a unit mark or has it been removed?
Thanks Mike-- it's actually not rifled though. These were smoothbore. No unit mark; I don't think these were (at least from the handful I've seen)

Wow Chris, excellent writeup with all the backstory in just the right dosage. Probably the most extensive naval thread on the section, and on the 'Reichsflotte' of all things! Always something new to learn in the Imperial section to keep things fascinating. Something I wouldn't even know to look for. A real diamond in the rough. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Alex- I was happy to find one reasonably priced, the Philly marked navy muskets are pretty desirable to the Civil War crowd. The European muskets sold in the US are a good case of multi disciplinary appeal.. I usually don't run i the same circles as those guys. haha.
 

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