I suspect this will do well in the upcoming mud test.

1st century BC Rome: "Ah yes, this is an original Kopis made in Corinth 500 years ago, and that one is a recent imitation from Crete. Barely worth its weight in bronze." Today: "Right, 15 million for the Corinthian Kopis and 20 million for the Cretan one in better condition."

We need to find the oldest firearm still in existence, and get Ian there. Also the oldest beretta, since they still have the invoice for their first order... Of wheel locks.

'Anthropomorphically Questionable Dude' - I wonder what the craftsman who did the work would think of that? Oh yeah, what exactly are the bears up to?

A lot of weapons (firearms and crossbows) decorated in this style can be found in a hunting context 'Jagdschloss'. And they are even more awesome to see in person.

"Is that a REAL fake?" "No, that's a fake fake"

I would love to have a look at the kind of tools that were used 450 years ago to create such awesome works of art.

Wheel lock: 16th century Bic lighter.

6:36 This is why you gotta hold onto your Norinco 1897s and 1911s, they may be 'cheap Chinese replicas of American legends' today but in 200 years they'll be worth a fortune.

Ah, for when a hunter from Bloodborne truly wants to style on his fellow hunters.

i wish id look as good at 400 years old

Most people: C96 is so bulky and weird. So is the Mars. Forgotten weapon: Observe.

"Puffer style" may come from the period fashion of dress, "puff and slash" as was worn by the Landsknechts.

I love how all the animals have eyebrows. Bears, boars, lions, everything.

Ian's facial hair really matches the vibe of these pistols

Great video! Cavalry firearms like this were in part intended for use in a manoeuvre called the caracol. As the name suggest it was something the Spanish cavalry were noted for. A unit of horsemen armed with pistols and or longish arms of one sort or anther, would approach an infantry unit at a trot or walk. The front rank would fire and then wheel back through the other ranks to the rear, while reloading. Next rank fires and then wheels and so on. Such firearm cavalry were common on late 16th and 17th century battlefields and were usually armoured so as to sustain fire from the infantry. They rarely charged home, indeed there are a number of examples of such Calvary being surprised and routed by cavalry who did charge them! That was one of the tricks of Gustavus Adolphus' Swedish horsemen during the 30 years war, they actually charged into the opposing and largely stationary cavalry of the German Imperialists. This and the increasing effectiveness of muskets put an end to this peculiar tactic. One of the last instances i can thin of was at the Battle of Roundway Down in 1643, when Sir William Waller's Western Parliamentary army included a regiment of armoured 'lobsters' equipped in this fashion (though I suspect with primitive flintlock pistols) who were shot to pieces by Sir Ralph Hopton's Royalist musketeers.A magnificent pair of pistols, wish I had the price they will probably sell for!

Now that is amazing. For it to still be in such a gorgeous condition

3:39 The guy looks like one of those renaissance painting memes *"Mother, why have you birthed me into this living nightmare of flesh and suffering?"*

O M G. I have no words for the 16th century craftmanship.

That stuff should be in the Rüstkammer in Dresden, they just restored the Langer Gang for old guns like that

Good god these are gorgeous. And I love seeing Ian's eyes light up talking about the Victorian era reproductions and their current collector value. His passion for guns is so damn infectious, I am fairly certain people with no interest in guns could watch this video and find this fascinating.

Truely Beautiful! The art and craftsmanship!

Wow. Really incredible pieces there. Talk about guns as art! They're in such good shape too, for being over 400 years old. Very cool stuff, thanks Ian!

My peasant ears!! Hand carved stag horn from nearly 450 years ago... This is incredible. Awesome content!

For a weapon that old, the art is incredible

they are absolutely gorgeous, even more so when you think about how old they are. Beautiful craftsmanship

The work that went into those pistols is just insane....

Thank you for sharing these with us sir! Love looking at firearms from this time period.

Thank you, I would just love to see more of this kind of video

They are gorgeous. Amazing work

Aperture sights on a smoothbore black powder pistol are an amazing example of optimism.

Last time I was this early, weapons like these were cutting edge

I can't even begin to imagine how anyone could so casually handle a pistol that's older than even the early American colonies. Imagine, you could make something in your lifetime that ends up being admired and displayed by the people of centuries ahead.

My favorite kind of thing to see on the channel, amazing!

The sights are very cool and impressive.

Amazing pieces

What an amazing piece of history!

These are simply spectacular. Just...wow.

Ian I was a member of the Worms, Germany shooting club 1490, many years ago. The 1490 referee to the year the club was started and to the gun that wad the reason for the club. It a was snap Schusswaffen that was referred to as new at the time. Exactly how the club came to own the gum I have no idea, but the gun in 1490 was worth all of the following ; 100 morgen land, living house, 2 destrier, full suit of chain, 5 weapons of choice, 10 male serfs, and 8 Gold coins.

i remember carrying 3 of them or some variation when playing Mount & Blade Fire and Sword.

That fish/snake scale ramrod is beautiful.

"That belt clip kinda looks like the Assassin's Creed logo." *Abstergo has entered the chat*

absolutely amazing craftsmanship

Thank you , Ian .

I've seen ones very close in design to those in person at the tower of London exhibits, just near a set of gun based melee weapons, including my favourite, a four barrel wheel lock gunaxe, where the four barrels were concealed behind the flip open axeblade

Very cool! Thanks Ian

That's a really pretty pistol, thanks for sharing!

2:10 And cracking someone's skull in pinch, I assume. EDIT: Apparently not, from the comment in Victorian counterfeit wheellock video.

I still remember the lorenzoni rifle you showed us once... probably my favourite weapon you ever showcased. It complitely demolished what i knew about flintlocks.

I'm thinking of building a Wheellock rifle with most of the features that I've seen through research, a breech loading system, the aperture sights seen on these pistols and a self spanning wheel

It's place is in a museum!

those engravings are actually a secret map to hidden treasure. Believe me, I'm playing a lot of video games.

Wow those are gorgeous! True craftsmanship that doesn't exist today!

a peep sight on a 16th century pistol !! that's nuts !!

Never ask a Woman, shes age A Man, his salary A Saxon soldier, his fanciness

What a beautiful pair of guns

Wow... the condition on these pieces is unbelievable! ✨

Love the channel, Ian. I discovered the channel from a suggestion by KZfaq that said "Mars Pistol" and my first impression was "Who's this dirty hippie?! He scares me!" But, I powered through and subscribed and now a fan. Keep doing what you're doing.

Wow, that engraving is impressive!!!🤯

Those things are spectacular

A work of art.

The history of these two must spectacular

Wonderful video of a time when even weapons were works of art. I’m surprised, Ian, that you didn’t take it apart to show how it worked. But if you did that, the folks at RIA would have massive coronaries.

Big, ancient-style ball-butted horse pistols are fun to shoot! I found a simple but massive reproduction matchlock pistol with a .69 caliber smoothbore barrel as long as my forearm. Very utilitarian with no decoration or trigger guard. Goes great with my Swedish 1590 .75 matchlock arquebus reproduction. From the time of Queen Elizabeth I to the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, sailors and cavalry experimented with numerous models of shortened matchlock arquebus firearms. Infantry arquebus models proved too long for mounted troops. Among them was the matchlock "handgonne". It was a transitional firearm, replaced shortly after by wheellock pistols.

Nice pieces

Definitely up there with some of the coolest firearms ever 😯

Oh I can't wait to see how much these sell for, that's incredible

Wheel locks are really cool.

It's fascinating how much art and history can pop up from a firearm. One could say something about the perceived necessity of a person and their weapon throughout history.

you should get a tilt shift camera, as it allows you to change the plane of focus, via tilting it, and you will be able to get the sights SOOO much better.

That's real craftsmanship.

Holy expletive those are a handsome pair!

Jaw dropping craftsmanship from 450 years ago.

That’s one of the prettiest firearms I’ve seen, so ornate.

Beautiful!

Nice to see a pair of pistols two centuries older than my new house. The sights were also seen on much older crossbows. I would love to know how they established how to line them up to match the ball's flight. I have seen old matchlocks where the tube has a slot into which you slotted in a small plate with the hole so you could make several plates until the sights lined up.

I believe the Pummel was also used like a Algonquin war club once the weapon was fired. That is probably where the phrase.... " I will pummel you " comes from.

Some nice fancy pistols at The Royal Armories,Leeds. Easily find out who the makings are of and where they worked as they have a good library too.

At 5:36 you can see the craftsman messed up on the top illustration, on the bottom pistol. Perhaps he followed the sketch upside down when he noticed his mistake, or held the firearms carving piece upside down. The wave on the left starts upside down, but the right end of the wave is right side up, compared to the top equivalent, it looks like he tried to mask it by adding a small curve the right way next to the mistake just like in the top too, which didn’t really help. Pretty cool detail for the history of the firearm.

The attention to detail is absolutely insane. And to think these are 450 years old... *450*

I can only imagine the incredible amount of skill it took to make and engrave those guns. No lathes, no mills, no presses, no powered engraving tools or computer programs or anything like that. Incredible amounts of skill.

If only gun makers made this type of quality still. Absolutely beautiful pieces of history there. Love em.

Beautiful - the endless days of work that went into the pistols is amazing, not just the engraving but the metal working, too. Yes! Comparison video of Victorian fakery would be fascinating.

Those are beautiful pistols.

The cleaning technique and care back in the days the surface quality looks great

Those are very beautiful pistols

I want to see them out there on the range!

Oh your neat Ian......lots of love from new Zealand.....since the Christchurch shooting we cant even own a ten22...

YES! we like this stuff too. thanks Ian

These belong in a museum!

Beautiful

Holy engraving that’s more art then gun !!!!! People back then had it wrong there a time for paintings and a time for guns but not both lol

These are amazing. Holy cow. 👍👍👍

if not already, these gorgeous weapons deserved to be immortalized as video game weapons. i can just imagine a 16th century dante with these as his ebony and ivory.

Fascinating

Puffer is likely to refer to the enormous sleeves they had on their coats and jackets... you know, Landsknecht style (there also on the "shorts"... )

kinda funny to see those type of pistols on youtube, i live in dresden (capital pf saxony) and the (very cool) museum in the castle of the city actually has quite a bunch of interesting weapons including quite a number of ornate flintlock pistols, but also swords with integrated guns, and other cool stuff if you ever plan a trip to germany and you're interested in medieval weapons i highly recommend checking the museum out

beautiful !

For a moment I thought you were going to tell us these were pulled out of a re-used long barrow in east Cambridgeshire!!!

old guns are always beautiful