The overall design of this large bore wheellock rifle is indicative of manufacture in Germany, most likely in the 17th century. The stock has extensive scrimshawed inlays and follows the form popular later in the century. The inlays have a variety of patterns, including images of several unicorns and other beasts, a nude woman on the left side of the forend, the faces of multiple men, a cavalry battle scene on the extended cheekpiece, and a boar hunting scene with dogs on the patch box cover. The ramrod even has a bone tip with an inlaid "wild man" or devil. While some of the beasts may seem obviously mythic today, they would have been thought to be real by most in the 17th century as had been the case in Europe and other parts of the Old World for centuries. Unicorns, for example, were widely believed to be real and were simply thought to be elusive or located in a distant land. In Europe, the idea was spread by a mistranslation of the word for a wild ox in the Hebrew Bible as well as mentions of the beasts in ancient Greek texts about India, a place that the writers had never visited. Some of the myths can be traced back as far as ancient Persia. It was believed that unicorn horns had tremendous healing powers and could even combat poison which let them to be seen as a symbol of purity and grace and also provided a lucrative market for narwhal horns collected by Norwegian whalers. Parallels with the life of Christ and unicorn myths also helped secure the unicorn an important place in European folklore. There are no visible maker's marks which is not uncommon on guns from this period. The barrel is equipped with fixed blade and notch sights and has early, eight groove rifling. The trigger curls at the bottom and is contained in an extended trigger guard with finger grooves. Wheellocks were difficult and very expensive to manufacture and also took more time to reload than other early firearms. The rifling further slowed loading. Thus, they were almost exclusively owned and used by members of the nobility and members of their courts. The complex actions had to be manufactured by hand by very talented smiths to be reliable, but when properly made, a wheellock fires even faster than flintlocks.

Good. The barrel and lock have gray and brown patina and some light pitting. The lock is slightly brighter than the barrel. The stock is also good, but well worn with various small nicks and scratches, well executed piecing around the lock, some period repaired cracks, and a few very small pieces of inlay absent. The lock mechanism does function with hesitation but is complete.