Details of RCA #65

     This a truly wonderful rifle which appears to have been made somewhere in upper Bucks or Montgomery Counties; southern Northampton county, along the borders of these two aforementioned counties, is also a possibility.  It is the rarest of ‘Bucks County school’ rifles in that it is embellished with very fine, low relief carving, quite a step removed from the much more typical incised work which is almost a defining characteristic of the Federal-era Bucks school.  This rifle does not seem to bear any relation to the work of the well-known regional gunsmiths of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these being Andrew Verner, John Shuler and George Weiker as illustrated in Shumway’s Rifles of Colonial American Volume I.  George Shumway did include this rifle and a nearly-identical rifle which is part of the Kindig Collection [see Kindig’s Thoughts on the Kentucky Rifle..., pages 160-161] within a July, 1996 Muzzle Blasts article entitled “A Case of Lehigh Valley Longrifle Evolution” wherein he associated these two rifles with the maker of a third, much earlier rifle.  I would question this association but as none of the pieces are signed it can not be completely ruled out.  Overall, this is an exceptionally beautiful and graceful rifle.

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