Quote Originally Posted by greenwayjames View Post
It certainly is primitive looking especially the rear of the butt. That is either very crude workmanship or a later repair. It does look to have been in a fire and suffered. The hammer just doesnt look right, its out of proportion and of a weird shape. Could this be a later single shot roughly made copy? The workmanship looks crude in some areas but the main casting housing the mechanism looks well made. Maybe some anonymous tinkerer, after the Napoleonic war, got hold of some fire damaged parts and had a go at making something out of them? Girardoni wouldnt have used this as a pattern on which to base his 1780 model surely?
Contrary to your view, I don't see anything wrong with this gun. I don't see any fire damage, but, with only the one picture it's just premature to make any firm comments. Note: I believe that side plate, hammer and tank are made of forged iron not steel which would account for their appearance.

This gun is of the Austrian-Butt-Reservoir battery type (as described by Wolff.) The only real difference between this gun and the Girardoni is the addition of the Girardoni repeater magazine; otherwise, everything is the same. The history of the ABR battery type air gun, prior to the Girardoni, is essentially unknown. This is the only example of an airgun of the type that appears (at least to my eyes) to be earlier than 1780.

In terms of production: Cortina d'Amprezzo's traditional commercial connections are to the south in northern Italy where gun production dates back to the 1500's (Beretta, etc.) It's entirely possible that the castings came from a commercial foundry in northern Italy and was then completed in Cortina d'Amprezzo.

The hammer: Yes, very odd. One thing I think we can be pretty sure of is that the maker was not a professional gunmaker. It's also not impossible that this gun is so early that the flintlock mechanism had not yet appeared or had not yet come to dominate gun production. From what I understand, Tyrol was very late to the game with flintlock designs. It seems that they generally preferred the wheel lock long after the flintlock was popular elsewhere.

The museum has promised a bunch more pictures, hopefully some time in January, so, with any luck we should get a better look at this bad boy.