Featured Miniature ship cannon, possible salesman sample?

This miniature cannon has bronze barrel, steel hardware, wood carriage. Barrel is about 15” long, whole thing weighs about 50 lbs. Not mine yet but should be headed my way via a short chain of folks I’ve encouraged to buy it. Last in chain finally has it and we’ve agreed on terms. Sometimes these things take time.

Whatzit? It is an exact scale model of a merchant ship’s “insurance gun” they were required to carry in order to be underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. Was not made to shoot because due to the exact scale, the vent is too small to be used for igniting a charge. Fortunately no one has polished it! I’ve never seen a scale model of this type cannon before. Many iron barrels from real antique insurance guns of this type survive, but very few carriages. I’ve only seen a few original, full-sized bronze barrels of this general style. I’m guessing this item was made either as a salesman’s sample or for presentation. It is completely unmarked. It is somewhat remarkable that it is basically complete; there may have been a quoin to provide elevation for the barrel, but that’s a minor loss. The bronze casting or finishing is top - notch. Needs further research.

 

I'd call it a carronade rather than a cannon. I think the salesman sample idea is a bit unlikely, you'd no more want to heft that around than a real one but I think that may have been something of a joke.
It may have been in a ship's chamdler's saleroom display, who knows?

 

Thanks AF (suddenly hit me that AF might stand for “Always Funny.”)

Yes the barrel is similar to that of a carronade, but for one difference, the carronade lacks trunnions, having instead a wide lug underneath to connect it to a low carriage. This shape tube with trunnions vice the carronade’s “underlug” is called a “gunade.” Warships were armed with carronades ca. 1800. But I’ve seen only a very few gunades listed in storage inventories of US Navy yards during 19th C. I’ve seen hundreds of real antique gunade barrels in the market over say the past 40 years, but only about 3 real carronades, one of which I bought. I’m sure the vast disparity in numbers of survivors simply reflects the ratio of sailing merchant vessels to sailing warships in existence in, say, 1820. I don’t know when Lloyd’s began requiring merchantmen to be armed, but in reading some old admiralty court proceedings, the very first issue considered was establishing how the ship suffering the loss was armed in terms of “carriage guns” and “swivels.”

 

I take the point regarding the carronade construction, I tend to think sinply in terms of long guns and carronades and their distribution and use in Napoleonic War naval vesels where the carronades were upper deck mounted heavy sluggers for close range use.
I have never given much thought to merchant ship armament.

 

I received this in a wood crate on Friday, undamaged. I had suggested to seller to pack it upside-down so the weight of the heavy barrel wouldn’t be subject to damaging the more fragile carriage, but he ignored that, and it survived anyway. Looking at it closely tells me the bronze barrel was lost-wax-cast, there’s no evidence of lathe turning on it at all. Plus some of the cavetto (groove between rings) are discontinuous, they can’t be lathe-turned anyway. The trunnions are below centerline, a practice which was mostly changed to centerline location by about 1790’s. So now I’m going to have to rethink what this model represents.

 

enjoy your new toy...it's very handsome !!