On Fri, 3 Nov 1995, Cathy Gaither wrote: > Hello, > Since we are on the subject of guns.... and now that you mention it. I am researching a gun found on a wreck that dates to somewhere around 1810. It is a Spanish miquelet with an "R" on the thumb plate. It has no other visible maker's marks. Does anyone have any ideas on makers or area of manufacture? It has been suggested that it was made in Ripoll and that is what the R stands for. I have consulted Lavin's "History of Spanish Firearms" which goes into great detail about the makers of Royal arms, but provides very little information about the more common makers as there is apparently very little information available. If anyone knows of any other sources or has any ideas about this gun, I would appreciate any information you could give me. Thanks in advance, Cathy, The letter "R" is often found on government issue items from the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in Spanish Colonial contexts. In general, it is used to indicate royal property (i.e. property of "El Rey.") In this, it is similar to the British "broad arrow." The use of the letter "R," generally also shown with a crown, can be dated to 1728. A Royal Ordinance of that year required its use on military weapons. However, this custom was not always observed. After 1750, the letters "EX" were often followed by the arsenal inspector's initial, and a date. The letter "R" was sometimes replaced by other letters designating a Royal Arsenal or town (see Brinckerhoff and Chamberlin noted below, page 30 - see also the reproduction of a contemporary drawing showing the letter on a musket estucheon of 1752, page 34). I have seen "R" cut into bronze cannon, as well as horse shoes and other firearms. The work of the Ripoll firearms factory is highly distinctive, and I have never seen the letter "R" on any items of this type that I have recovered. Spanish firearms were mass produced in Spain in the Madrid, Barcelona, and Toledo areas. They were also mass-produced in Mexico City at the end of the colonial era. Regional production by gunsmiths occurred in numerous areas, including remote frontier provinces, such as Sonora and Paraguay. Spanish forces of this era were also armed with weapons produced by Britain (including the "brown bess") and French fusiles. In New Spain (Mexico) - weapons were stock-piled at the fortress of Perote for redistribution to regional forces. Fragments of Spanish firearms are relatively common on Spanish military sites in northern New Spain. Carbines (escopetas) manufactured in the Barcelona area (escopetas ripolenos, escopetas de cataluna) as well as pistols (pistolas) and blunderbuses (trabucos) have been identified on archaeological sites, and are described in numerous supply and inspection papers. Drawings of some of these weapons can also be found in AGN (the Mexican National Archive). They were first described in detail in Art Woodward's contribution to Charles DiPeso's 1953, study of the Presidio of Santa Cruz de Terrenate. Probably Sydney Brinckerhoff and Pierce Chamberlin's "Spanish Military Weapons in Colonial America 1700-1821" published by Stackpole Books, in 1972, will be of more use to you than Lavin. They describe a wide array of makers' marks (puzones), and note that the letter "R" sometimes appears as a military arsenal inspection mark on such weapons (p. 28). Jack S. Williams The Center for Spanish Colonial Archaeology Real Presidio de San Diego Excavations, California