Original Item: Only One Available. Recently purchased by an English Dealer from an American Picker this truly is a find! A genuine SLEEPER apparently uncovered in a Massachusetts barn in 2010. A jolly good story but very possibly true.
This original second model short land pattern Brown Bess musket with a 42″ barrel is precisely the model used by British troops during the Revolutionary War of the 1770s. The lock is marked “Dublin Castle” which would be correct as many of the British troops, especially those stationed in the Boston area, were in fact Irish Regiments having a home base of Dublin Castle of what is now Eire, then British controlled Ireland.
This musket has literally come out of a time capsule having been set aside most probably at its time of service and has never since been cleaned nor restored and almost certainly saw service in the American Revolutionary War, 1776-1783.
Amazingly it comes with the original socket bayonet with its brass mounted leather scabbard, the bottom mount of which is missing.
The musket, correct in every respect, is missing the very tip of the fore-end of the wood butt stock in front of the most forward of the four ramrod pipes. Both the slight wood loss and the bayonet scabbard tips are simple restorations, however, the whole point here is that this item has never been cleaned nor repaired and is in 100% original having just sat in storage, said to have been a New England barn, for in terms of 230 years!
This is a true piece of U.S. History, probably never to be repeated.