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Ottoman flintlock pistol that was gifted to me got stolen.

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Hello everyone!
This is my first post on your fine forum. I a collector, especially coins, knives, militaria and Finnish desinger glassware, ceramics and desinger crystal objects (not desinger drug crystaIs, lol sorry for the bad pun. I am a metal detectorist also and my home was full of rare collectibles of every sort. Basically Finland is a safe country and i lived in a good areawhere you could basically leave your doors unlocked if you wanted to do so with no fear of burglars or intruders. Well, on a fateful evening/night 5th of december 2019 last year ( it was the eveing before the day of Finnish Independence day) I was laying on my bed watching tv and I had fallen asleep. Suddendly I wake up as the door bell rang. I was still half asleep when I opened the door. Suddendly in the matter of milliseconds there comes the adrenaline rush. You just realized this is not good not good at all. It was dark outside and there you see two masked men dressed in full black outfits and because it's dark you can't see anything what, who or how many more of them might still be out there and are they armed somehow. They forced the door open so i tried to retret and position myself to defend myself if It came to that. (Finnish laws are so screwed up that way that even when you are in a clear situation in which criminals have a clear intent to harm you physically or your property even if they have broken inside your home you will probably most likely be attempted in court with charges ranging for use of excessive force in self-defence or most probably the charges will be attempted homicide even if you clearly were just trying to protect yourself unless you can prove they otherwise would have killed you. In other words if you do not first have slashed a artery you may not use necessary measures of force to fight off your attackers. Can you please identify or at least give me an estimated worth of this fine piece of art:

TURKISH FLINTLOCK PISTOL OTTOMAN EMPIRE | #1914195609

You can inspect the pictures of the pistol behind that link and also read some description of that piece. I'm not so sure if it is just the pictures or is that barrel a bit rounder than it is hexagonal. Mine had destinct hexagonal shape The wooden ahndle had no cracks or shards/pieces missing. however the pistol was deactivated by welding some length of the barrel shut. The barrel of my gun was also a bit longer than the wooden frame unlike the gun shown in the photos behind the link. decoration is pretty much similar however on the top of the barrel at the very tip of the barrel there was different ornamental silver finish which was some what like a fork/trident(with more spikes or some kind of bundle even maybe?

Please I would very much appreciate every piece of help You could offer. The police seems to be useless and unable to even locate the suspects and the insurance company seems very uneager to make the process any easier for the victim. My greatest wish would be that the loot could be found in the whole. The list is massive and those junkies probably never even realized what the items are worth and most items even were because some of the items they stole or we planning on stealing and what items they left behind are somewhat irrational. How ever they still managed to find most of my dearest collectibles which no amount of money can replace. Soon almost 5 months have passed so i believe my items will never be recovered. Still flintlock is one of the items that puzzle me because I can't seem to value it, because these collectibles are not in my field of expertise and when you just google flintlock pistol the price range is so overwhelmingly huge. So please help me to give atleast some estimate or your best educated guess, so I can proceed with my lifeand get this insurance company nightmare behind, because they won't proceed with the claim before I have given an estimated value and estimated age/year of purchase for every item on a very very long list. Every time I have to continue the listing I have to relive that night over and over again and I have already given my best 20 times already in trying estimate the objects. So please , any help with this one is eternally appreciated. Than you again.
Sincerly yours,
Markus
 
Welcome.
There is one gentleman on the forum who has restored some old Turkish Eurasian weapons. Hopefully he will have some answers for you.
Sorry for your unfortunate experience..

All of that aside, this is a good place to be. Lots of good information, and great folks.
 
Sorry to hear about the home invasion- and hope your insurance company get things sorted out

By the way- don`t move to Canada if you want the laws to be any different- ours are just as screwed up as yours.
my wife and I were talking about moving to Texas today, partially because of the worsening laws we have here
 
Hi Markus

Sorry to hear about this. Nothing saddens a collector more than a situation like this. The thieves will likely try to sell the items as quickly as possible, for any amount of cash they can get. If you have what we call "pawn" shops in your area, that would be the first places I would look. The police should put out a notice to all the pawn shops and antique stores in your area to be on the lookout for your list of items. It sounds as if the thieves were somehow "aware" of your collection (?)

About the pistol you posted photos above: I hate to add to your misery, but the pistol posted above is actually a tourist copy for decoration only. It was never made to fire. That's also why the bore is not drilled all the way through.
The lock was never made to work reliably. The example in the photos is typical of the tourist pistols made after WW2 through the 1960's. These tourist type pistols are still being offered today, although with less quality than the earlier examples. The description given by the auction house is 100% wrong. Unless the auction house specializes in firearms in general, and antique guns in particular, their descriptions are often inaccurate. But with many auction houses, it's all about the money. The pistol in the photo would go for no more than $150.00 USD from someone who knows that it is a 20th Century tourist replica. Wish I had better news.

Rick
 
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