Valuing an original Girandoni.

[DT Fletcher]

In Hallar, there is the following: "New price set for a complete air-gun 35 Gulden, for a air tank 5 gulden, a hand pump for 3 gulden."

Contract price for a standard infantry musket at the time was 4-5 gulden. A Girandoni with 3 tanks and a pump was 53 gulden so a complete outfit was more than 10 times the price of a musket. A good daily wage at the time was 1 gulden a day.

As it turns out “Gulden” is German for gold coin in general. The actual coins minted by Joseph II were in domination's of ducats; a ducat from hundreds of years of practice has a nominal weight of 3.5 grams of gold or 1/8 ounce. So, a complete Girandoni with accessories, but not including the fancy special case for spare tanks and the pump, would cost 6.5 ounces of gold or $8,125 at today’s (2/11/2017) gold prices. A very expensive weapon.

Recently came across a comparable from an 1808 French book of new inventions; with the imposition of his Continental System baring English manufactured goods onto the entire European Continent, Napoleon also pushed, out of necessity, new industry in France and French controlled territories, including Italy and Rome.

"Air Guns and Canons,

These air guns, invented by a gunsmith of Rome, have the form of a large cane, which is divided into two pieces, and which can be carried in the pocket. You can fire these rifles for forty shots in a row. The price is forty sequins*.

The same artist has made models of cannon which can be loaded from behind, and which can be used for the batteries of the ships."

* Sequin: as it turns out a Sequin is the same thing as a ducat; a gold coin weighing 3.5 grams (0.12 oz) of .986 gold, minted by the Republic of Venice from the 13th century onwards. Following the Venetian model, similar coins were used for centuries throughout the Mediterranean. So, anyone wanting a Tomaso Diamenti air cane would have been expected to hand over a total of 5 ounces of gold or $6179 at today’s gold price.

As a side note, I would expect that the Tomaso Diamenti air cane, made in Rome, would have incorporated parts manufactured in England. The Tomaso Diamenti is an advanced air cane design on a par with the typical London air canes of the 1800s. A gunmaker in 1808 Rome is unlikely to be able to manufacture the precision parts needed on an economical scale. The answer is that Sicily, a short smuggler's boat ride to Rome, and Sicily was the last stronghold of England throughout the Napoleonic wars. The smuggling trade from Sicily to Italy was enormous. With Britain ruling all the surrounding water, there was little that Napoleonic Italy could do about the smuggling of English goods from Sicily.

Why was there a demand for powerful air canes in 1808 Rome? Calabria (toe of Italian boot) was in constant low-grade combat from 1806 to 1810 and even later. Most any French officer would have appreciated the value of such a weapon. Also, any civilian, spy, or agent, would doubly appreciate the concealability of an air cane. The entire population of Naples had been ordered to be disarmed. To openly carry a weapon as a civilian would result in death.