Description

Rare CRAUSE IN HERZBERG .70 Caliber Percussion Musket in exceptional condition and matching throughout. Some sources state many of these were imported before the Civil War and saw service early on, but I have found no verified examples… At .70 caliber this is a massive heavy firearm and built like few others of the period…A fine mid 19th century military firearm and one of the best condition examples seen.

“Carl Phillip Crause (who signed his products only with his last name) operated a gun manufactory in Herzberg on the Harz in the northwestern German kingdom of Hannover from the close of the Napoleonic Wars until of 1857. The main production of his factory was devoted to military arms for Hanover and the surrounding principalities. Weapons of his manufacture included the Brunswick M1835 and M1848 rifles, the Hanoverian M1850 and M1854 rifle-muskets and Jager rifles, and the M1840 and M1849 rifle-muskets of the Hanseatic League (a coalition of the north German states of Oldenberg, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck). The latter two arms were subsequently altered to accept the elongated projectiles popular during the 1850s, and a few thousand evidently imported into the United States and saw service during the American Civil War.”
Springfield Armory Museum – Collection Record