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SUPERLATIVE & ELEGANT CHRISTIAN BECK GOLDEN AGE

Currency:USD Category:Firearms & Military Start Price:7,500.00 USD Estimated At:15,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
SUPERLATIVE & ELEGANT CHRISTIAN BECK GOLDEN AGE

FLINTLOCK RIFLE. 40 Cal. NSN. 60.5” overall, 45” octagonal barrel beautifully signed “C Beck” with fancy script and 4-pointed star between “C” & “Beck”. Curly maple stock with straight comb, basket weave checkered wrist, elegant relief carved with 4-petal flower and C-scrolls merging into incised carving around large oval engraved silver eagle inset on cheek piece, a total of 20 silver insets are used on this gun, several en suite to carving; engraved sideplate, toe plate, & trigger guard. Among the most elegant patch boxes found is this exquisitely engraved 4-piece box with bird finial. It is more elaborate than the examples in Kindig which he writes glowingly about “Christian Beck -The Later” of the Chambersburg school, “very imaginative designer of patch boxes…bird patch boxes are some of the most charming patch boxes found on Kentuckys. I consider it a detail that is very beautiful, desirable, and rare.” Original flint lock lightly engraved, rebated tail, sculptured unsupported cock, roller frizzen, with worn indiscernible name. Wood ramrod has attached iron worm. This is pictured on page 44 of Jim Johnston’s “Accoutrements V”. “This rifle serves to demonstrate that Christian Beck was truly one of the master craftsmen of the Golden Age”
[John] Christian Beck (1787-1863) was son of Lebanon school maker [John] Christian Beck (1750-1806) and nephew of Lebanon school maker John Philip Beck (1751-1811). Beck had quite an interesting history as gunmaker, farmer, soldier, Methodist exhorter [lay preacher], and finally wagon train master. After moving around Pennsylvania, then Maryland, then Virginia, and then the Midwest, fighting in the Blackhawk wars as an officer in the Hancock County Indiana militia, he became farmer and Methodist preacher in Illinois. He buried 2 wives and had 13 children born in the various placed he lived in PA, MD, VA, and his last son Andrew Jackson Beck born 1831 in Fayette County, Indiana. In 1863 as son Andrew Jackson Beck was fighting at Vicksburg with the 33rd Illinois, Beck was on his way to Oregon. “Beck was wagon master of a party of pioneers including the families of his son Joseph Beck, his daughter Margaret Beck Robertson and his daughter Elizabeth Conwell Beck Rice. They wanted to go to Oregon sooner but Elizabeth Stamm Beck feared the Mormons. He died en route on the Oregon Trail after consuming spoiled salmon, September 6, 1863. His death was a devastating blow to his Oregon Trail weary children who settled in Baker County [Oregon] and did not travel on to the end of the trail in Oregon City. Beck was buried along the Burnt River near Huntington [Baker County, Oregon]. CONDITION: fine overall as restored, original flint configuration. The 2 forward keyway escutcheons are restorations but back 4 are original, the forestock is spliced and restored just forward of ramrod thimble. Mechanics fine including double set triggers, well discerned rifled bore. (01-21759/JS). ANTIQUE. $15,000-20,000.