German Saxon Trabanteinleibgarde Ball Butt Wheellock Puffer Circa 1595

A Rare And Desirable German Saxon Trabanteinleibgarde (Imperial Royal Trabant Life-Guard) Ball Butt Wheellock Puffer Circa 1595.

13 and 3/4 inch octagonal to round barrel. 60 caliber. The barrel with swamped muzzle and engraving at ‘wedding ring’ as well as breech retaining considerable fading old blue finish. Breech tang is engraved. The wheellock lock with safety, engraved wheel cover, engraved dog and well filed frizzen spring. The lock retains all of its internal mechanism.

Blackened walnut fullstock is stamped throughout its length in imitation of stag horn. The stock is inland with scrimshaw roundels depicting expanded blossoms, the butt inlaid with a roundel and engraved with a bearded man’s face on a fabulous creature. The breech tang enclosed by two beautiful inlays portraying a crowned monarch and a queen. Engraved stag horn fore-end cap and stag horn tipped ramrod. The lock with minor surface corrosion otherwise good original condition.

A large wheellock pistol, 24 inches overall that might be regarded as the German Luger of the late 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. Though several hundred remain in racks at the Dresden Armoury examples on the open market are rare.

The Trabantenleibguarde was an elite bodyguard that protected the Austrian Emperor, his family and the court aristocracy. The hand picked men were charged with both ceremonial duties as well as regular guard functions at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.