Featured Unusual cast-iron cannonS

This came in to wife's biz recently and I had no idea what kind of Cannon it was at first.

https://www.skinnerinc.com/auctions/2856M/lots/9

Scraping some old crud and paint from the trunnions (where markings are often found) was productive, revealing marks on both in perfectly legible high relief. One was marked "05" and the other had a conjoined "AB" monogram, which was only used by the Aker Cannon foundry in Sweden, actively producing cannons from 1588 until the 1840's. They cast this one in 1805.

I still didn't know the exact type of Cannon and it puzzled me because it had a very large bore for a Cannon of that size, and had other unusual features. So I posted the question on a topical forum. A Finnish man answered as Finland is bilingual, Finnish and Swedish, so he used his Swedish to navigate Swedish websites and find the information I wanted.

Turns out that this is a Swedish model 1804 light 12-pounder gun, aka "Von Helvig's model." The Swedish Army museum has one on the correct carriage, so I'll contact them and see if they have the old drawings of it that they could copy and send me.

http://digitaltmuseum.se/011024415667?query=kanon&page=20&pos=468&count=4356

http://digitaltmuseum.se/011024415669?query=kanon&page=18&pos=410&count=4356

Von Helvig was an interesting character, here's an automatically-translated article from Wikipedia:

Carl von Helvig

Carl von Helvig, also Karl Gottfried von Helvig [1] (* 4. September 1764 [2] in Stralsund as Carl (Friedrich Ludwig) Gottfried Hellwig [3] [4]; † 11. May 1844 in Berlin) was a Swedish General Feldzeugmeister and Prussian general lieutenant of artillery.

Table of Contents [Hide]
1 Life
2 fonts
3 Literature
4 References

Life [Edit]

He came from an originally Saxon family and was the son of the carpenter master and the senior's carpenters Kaspar Christian Hellwig. Helvig attended the town school in Stralsund. The income of the father were not enough to enable him to attend a higher education institution. Although already had been discovered and encouraged his drawing and mathematical talent at school, he had to start a carpentry apprenticeship according to the will of the Father. He turned out to be physically unfit and dealt, after an injury autodidact with Fortifikationszeichnungen. In 1781 he passed the entrance examination and went as an engineer cadet for fortification after Gothenburg. After his maintenance there could no longer finance and got no support, he enlisted there by the Swedish artillery. It was in 1782 sergeant and was involved in a campaign to Norway. In 1788 he was a second lieutenant. During the campaign in 1789 Finland became king Gustav III. Noticed him. The this subsequent Regent, who Duke of Södermann country, decided to establish Horse Artillery. For this purpose, from Swedish Pomerania originating artillery officer Carl Friedrich Kobes (later known as Carl von Cardell knighted) of Stralsund appointed to Sweden. This started off Helvig to his assistant, who was in 1794 promoted to Staff Captain. Though the two quarreled and Helvig 1795 to Major in perfecting's (Wendland) Artillery Regiment was promoted, Cardell took some decisive ideas Helvigs.

As Helvig in his new position, proposed to equip the Swedish artillery guns with iron, he came again in dispute. The Duke of Södermann country therefore ordered him to embassy to Constantinople Opel. Helvig led 1796 research around Çanakkale by where later Troy was discovered and joined with various scholars of his time and with Napoleon Bonaparte in conjunction.

After his return, he sat down again for a reform of the artillery. In 1802 he was lieutenant colonel in the artillery of the bodyguard and member of the Artillery Committee. He came to prominence as weapons designer deserves and led 1804 later named after him Helvigsche Feldkanone, which was lighter by about one third, than the older model used in 1749, but later replaced by Cardells construction was. In the same year he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Developed by him Feldjäger lop had a run with an octagonal chamber, four trains and a bayonet. His caliber of 21.2 millimeters was the biggest in Sweden in the 19th century.

1805 Helvig was promoted to adjutant general of the king and the colonel and inspector of artillery. In 1807 he was promoted to General Feldzeugmeister and commander of the entire artillery. That same year he was elevated to the Swedish nobility. Relations with the King Karl XIII. designed later unfavorably so Helvig 1815 with the transition Swedish Pomerania to Prussia resigned and entered as a Major General in the Prussian military service on 19 December 1815th Here one was particularly interested in his knowledge of iron gun barrels. When he fell out because of the production with the hut authority, the matter came to a standstill. Finally Helvig 1826 retired as lieutenant general.

Until his death he lived in Berlin, where he was engaged in scientific work. Since 1803 he was with Amalie von Imhoff married (1776-1831).

Fonts [Edit]
Comments about thunder and lightning, along with conjectures about the emergence of air phenomena. In: Annals of Physics. Vol. 51, Issue 10, 1815, pp 117-148 (Abstract).

Literature [Edit]
Bernhard von Poten: Helvig, Carl von. In: General German Biography (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, S. 500 f.
Helvig (Karl Gottfried). In: Conversations-lexicon of the latest period and literature. In four volumes. Vol. 2, FA Brockhaus, Keipzig 1833, p 401-402 (digitized).
Helvig, Karl Gottfried. In: Nordisk familjebok. Tape 6. First Edition. Stockholm 1876-1899, p 1011 f. (Swedish)
Gustaf Elgenstierna (Hg.):. The introducerade Svenska adelns ättartavlor Band 3, Stockholm 1927 (older Genealogy)
Genealogical Handbook of the nobility, Adelslexikon Volume V, page 108, volume 84 of the total row, CA strong publishing house, Limburg (Lahn) 1984th

References [edit]
1.Jumping Up ↑ The GHDA-Adelselxikon call him Carl Gottfried Helvig, Swedish peerage on 6 February 1807 "Helvig" (without "of") and introduction in the aristocratic class of the Swedish knights on 4 February 1809 Royal Swedish colonel of artillery, Adjutant General and inspector of artillery. Only his grandson Hugo Helvig was enrolled in the noble class on September 5, 1876 as "of Helvig" in the Kingdom of Bavaria. Thus, the attribution "of Helvig" for those described herein would Carl Gottfried Helvig wrong. - Source: Genealogical Handbook of the nobility, Adelslexikon Bd. V (1984)
2.High jump ↑ In Swedish encyclopedias called without further commentary notwithstanding September 7, 1765 as a birthday. - (See. Here).
3.High jump ↑ Otto Titan von Hefner: Studbook of flowering and dead nobility in Germany. Vol. 2, Georg Joseph Manz, Regensburg, 1863, pp 135-136 (digitized)
4.High jump ↑ In Nordisk familjebok is Wolgast indicated as the birthplace. With Poten (ADB) and Hefner called 1764 as year of birth.

 

The trunnion markings I mentioned, that gave the ID of the foundry and year of production





Carl's wife, Anna Amalia V.H., was also a very interesting person, an artist, etc. in case anyone is interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalia_von_Helvig

 

Ummmm..........................
WOW!!!

 

...

 

Trunnion - my new word of the day. I'll have to find a way to use it in general conversation.

 

"I stopt the kids trunnion around by giving them some coloring books"

 

Given the information you have, and the information Skinners didn't have, how appropriate was their auction estimate?

 

Really hard to say, but if they had all the info I found and put it in the catalog it may have sold for $5-7k. The piece had no carriage, was iron not bronze, wasn't US military, etc., all of which mitigated against a higher sale price. The piece I'd really liked to have won was the bronze Russian "unicorn" howitzer that had Arabic marks engraved on top. That meant it had almost certainly been captured by the Turks during the Crimean War. I dropped out when it went over 45k when I hadn't intended to bid over about $30k. I guess I wanted it but not badly enough. I didn't expect it to go that high. A friend bought it so I guess I could go visit it sometime. I would have enjoyed researching that one, depending on what the inscription says it may be possible to find some documentation of the particular battle where it changed ownership back in the 1850's.

 

They didn't do that good a job of identifying the howitzer either, did they?

 

I love how deep and intense you guys get when you get into things like "IRON"

 

They didn't have to, it wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome. Antique bronze military cannons are very collectible, and on top of that, I don't know of a single Russian unicorn having been sold in the US, ever. Nice item, nice price.