M1811 Naval musket
This is a strange one – it took me years and a lot of help from friends to find out what it was. After the English “Fleet robbery” in Copenhagen in 1807, the English and Swedes enforced a strict embargo of the Skagerak – the sea between Norway and Denmark. This resulted in famine in Norway and enormous difficulties getting merchandise between the countries. Norwegian arms had mostly been supplied from Denmark the last couple of hundred years and Norway was in dire need of replacements.
The musket is very simple, no nose band, simple side plate etc. The Kyhl internal flintlock proves it came from Denmark – as what?
A friend sent me some copies of an article covering this musket (that I embarrassingly can’t find now), stating it was a M1811 Flådehjælpen (The fleet help), to be used on the Norwegian canon boats doing their best to pester the English. It came with an highly unusual bayonet – a socket bayonet where the crude blade only was a square section of iron, no fullers, no nothing. The musket is ultra scarce (but really not all that interesting) and in rather a sorry shape missing the screw and upper jaw on the hammer.
