Interesting Find In Old House: 2 PA Long Rifles

[EW3]

I was talking with a co-worker the other day and he was telling me about an interesting discovery his father-in-law found in his home in southern Delaware; Indian River Bay. The house was orginally a plantation in that area.

The home dates from around 1730 and the FIL has owned it for the past 40 years, but is getting ready to sell it. He was cleaning out the basement and came across a crawl space he had never gone into in all the time he was there. He got in and made a really interesting discovery:

Inside the crawl space, first wrapped in cloth, and then greased paper, were what appeared to be two Pennsylvania flintlock Long Rifles, along with two full powder horns! He said you could still smell the pork fat that the paper seemed to be soaked with. The powder was packed tightly in the horns and the rifles were in really great shape, with the only visible damage being part of the stock of the one looked like it dried out and cracked a little.

He's going to have them appraised soon. What a find!

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[retsupt99]

From the early 1700s'? I would say that those are MORE than just a find...$$$...cha-ching!

[QKShooter]

Cha-Ching is right. Possibly hundreds of thousands at auction.
Lucky Find.

[HotGuns]

Try to get some pics up. I'd like to see them.

[JohnD13]

What great luck! I'd like to see pics also.

[ppkheat]

Where are the pics, where are the pics ??? What a great story !

Speaking of finding old guns in a house. Back in the mid 1930's when my Dad was a kid, he came across an old abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere and found an old stockless rifle laying on the crude mantle. I never got to see it, since it "disappeared" a year or so later. From his description I'm sure it was a Spencer.

I've often wondered how did that rifle wind up abandoned in that old shack; and since some Civil War battles, etc happened in this area, I'm guess it was on old battlefield pick-up. Pretty much useless in the 1930's w/o a stock and the scaracity of ammunition for it.

I wonder where it is today?

I don't mean to hijack the thread with my story, but I wanted to share in another house find, though this old Spencer doesn't nearly compete with the preserved flintlock find.

[dukalmighty]

wow unbelievable,maybe they were hiding them from the gun grabbing British

[Katana]

+1 on the where are the pics. I've never seen anything that old before except in the back of shotgun news, where the ad for the auctions are normally located.

Would definitely love to hear what they appraised for as well.

[rstickle]

Not only pictures, but information on who made them, and where they were made! Since two of my ancestors were gunsmiths in that late 1700's I'm always interested in the who and where...

[moabicon]

A crawl space he never went into for the first 40 years he lived there? As unbelievable as it sounds, this story could be very interesting. What are the makers markings on these rifles?
Oh, and this thread is useless without Pics! ha ha

[EW3]

FYI for all asking for pics and info, I've asked my co-worker and he will be getting them as soon as he can. From what he tells me, the home sits on the bay that is accessible to the Atlantic, so my guess is that they were hidden away during the Revolution when the British controlled the area and forgotten. Such a great find, and as my co-worker says, his FIL is a BIG guns guy so this is better than finding a chest of gold!

[Pro2A]

Wow... two of them. I'd keep one and make some $$$ of the other.

[deadeye72]

What an amazing find.

[Dal1Celt]

Please help us out here with some art!

[ppkheat]

What a great find and treasure. It would be interesting to research the previous homeowners to see who may have been the owner who hid them.

HOWEVER, aside from the physical find of historical weapons, I think the greatest treasure here, is what it depicts and what is says about the citizens of the country at that time. Someone intentionally preserved, hid, guns and ammunition for some reason. What a statement. I wonder why?