The Reason For Screw Tip Spouts on Powder Horns ©
Foreword: Old wives’ tales die hard, since most were started by knowledgeable people trying to explain gaps in then-current knowledge with “reasonable” answers. Explanations for why screw tips were made have generally been “wives’ tales” that included better esthetics, hornsmiths highlighting their talents, maintaining local traditions, and perhaps the most widely accepted reason… the removable tip served as a funnel for filling the horn. But a wider study of better-quality powder horns with both screw-tips and standard integral tips points to a different and more functional reason for using screw tips on powder horns.
Study Horns: Screw tip horns are usually superior quality horns made by professional hornsmiths. But to understand why screw tips appear on horns, other superior quality horns with conventional spouts need to be examined, and Tansel powder horns provide good examples of that type horn. A few Kentucky-era Tansel horns have screw tips, some of which also have non-Tansel style butt plugs and undoubtedly were made by others and later taken to a Tansel carver for decorating. However, a few Tansel horns with Tansel style butt plugs have screw tips that a Tansel could have made. The Tansel carvers were skilled horn workers and used lathes to make chimed cup bottoms, flat butt plugs of thick horn at times, and Tansel-style tips when needed for skinny spouts that lacked the girth for an integral strap bead. Those turned Tansel spouts were then mounted on the horn and pinned in place. But overall, the large majority of Tansel horns like those in Figure No.1 had hand-carved integral spouts.
Figure No.1: These Tansel horns demonstrate the commonly seen types of damage that occurs to integral spouts during their working life, often from stoppers being inserted with excessive force repeatedly, but also from being dropped and banged around.
Figure No.2: This view of the damaged spouts shows a typical split spout from the stopper inserted with excessive force. The middle horn suffered tip damage that was cut off and the lower tip reshaped, and the horn on the right had its spout badly damaged and removed.
Spout Damage: Three Tansel powder horns with varying degrees of spout damage are shown in Figure No.1. Their three progressively damaged spouts are enlarged for better viewing in Figure No.2. The horn on the left had its spout tip abused [stopper seated too hard too often] causing a large sliver to split off the side and making the horn unusable due to no longer sealing tightly. The middle horn has a common repair seen on Tansel and other spouts when the spout tip is chipped, broken, or gets shallow cracks. The spout tip’s damaged section was cut off, and a shorter, tapered spout was made from the spout’s undamaged lower section. The third horn is typical of a Tansel horn, or any integral tip horn, that had its spout badly broken and/or split down to the strap retaining bead. The entire split/broken spout was cut off at the top of the strap retaining bead, which stopped the splitting due to its more robust thickness. Similar spout damage is seen on two fully carved Mercer County horns from Ohio in Figure No.3. Both Tansel and Mercer County horns, like Pennsylvania screw tip horns, were high quality horns that cost significantly more than a standard, plain horn. Yet damage is often seen on their integral spouts that required shortening or reshaping to salvage them. If damage became excessive, the entire spout was often removed down to the strap retaining ring… and if a split or break was so severe that it ran past the strap ring, the horn was no longer serviceable. But highly decorated carved horns had one advantage over the plainer screw tip horns; if they had excessive spout damage that prevented the horn from closing tightly and keeping powder dry, owners still valued the folk-art decoration and at times salvaged them into blowing horns like the one in Figure No.4. But the key question remains unanswered… how do damaged Tansel and Mercer County horns help explain the rationale for screw tip powder horns?
Figure No.3: These two high quality Mercer County, Ohio, carved powder horns have suffered spout damage similar to the damage on the Tansel powder horns above. The top horn had a chunk broken out of its spout from excessive force [or oversized stopper] being used too often, probably initially cracking the spout and eventually breaking a piece out of it. The smaller horn has a very dark spout, making it hard to see the damage. But it also has a piece of the spout wall broken out from excess stopper force. Neither horn shows much wear, so they must have been “retired” to the fireplace mantle.
Figure No.4: This early Indiana Tansel horn had its spout heavily damaged, perhaps from being dropped since the horn’s plug end was also damaged and trimmed back [see eagle’s shortened wing]. The owner must have admired the carved decoration. He had a coin silver band put around the horn’s open end to stabilize it, added a lathe-turned mouthpiece held in place by a silver collar, and salvaged the powder horn for use as a blowing horn.
Pennsylvania Screw Tips: Three Pennsylvania internal screw tip horns are shown in Figures No.5 and No.6, with an external screw tip horn from Indiana shown in Figures No.7 and No.8. The big difference between the screw tipped horns and the prior Tansel and Mercer County horns is less spout damage on screw tips than on integral spouts. Screw tips were the solution to an old inherent weakness in powder horns with integral spouts, particularly on better powder horns where spouts were often longer and slenderer as a mark of quality over shorter, chubbier spouts on homemade or gunsmith-made powder horns. A replaceable tip solved a longstanding problem with many powder horns.
Figure No.5: These three Pennsylvania screw tip horns all have internal screw tips. Each horn has a nicely turned applied collar below the screw tip, and a nicely turned butt plug with graceful beads and coves. The larger horn has a turned horn ring over its plug nails.
Figure No.6: A closer view of the tips on the three Pennsylvania horns highlights their different pitches of internal threads and different decorative turnings on the spouts themselves. Two spouts are intact, and one lost a chip out of its tip but has the stopper.
Figure No.7: This Midwest screw tip horn came off a farm in northern Steuben County, Indiana, along with its original bag and Indiana rifle. The bag remains in good condition despite strap damage, and has a small sheath and loop for camp axe on its back side.
Figure No.8: The screw tip on the Indiana horn is simpler than those on better Pennsylvania horns, but it clearly demonstrates the average size of the threaded opening on an external screw tip, which is relatively small and highlights the difficulty of pouring powder into it.
Tansel and Mercer County horns started life with better quality, light colored raw horns and nicely turned butt plugs, but their real value was in the folk-art images carved on their surfaces depicting period hunters, dogs and deer, sweethearts, political and military heroes, at times the owner himself, and other figures the owners could relate to and appreciate. In contrast, better Pennsylvania horns lacked decorative carving but were highly valued for their superior construction with beautifully turned and chip carved butt plugs, fancy horn rings over the plug nails, and attractively turned screw tip spouts and collars. The emphasis on superior design and construction undoubtedly led to the development of screw tip horns as an improvement over standard powder horns, despite the extra time, material, and tools required to make the screw tips.
Debunking the Myth: The theory that screw tips were made to provide a funnel for filling the powder horn has major flaws in its logic. First, the threaded opening on an exterior screw tip was still rather small, making it difficult to pour powder cleanly into it from a larger container resulting in spillage and waste of valuable powder… especially if in a hurry or pouring from a keg. Second, a small piece of paper easily made a funnel with a much larger opening than the end of a screw tip, and even leather, bark, leaves, or anything at hand that bent or curled easily, would make a wider mouthed funnel or chute for filling a powder horn than the mouth of an exterior screw tip. If that is not reason enough to convince readers that screw tips were not used as funnels, then why did so many fine screw tip Pennsylvania horns have internally threaded tips? If exterior tips offered the advantage of serving as funnels for filling horns, would not most Pennsylvania screw tips have externally threaded tips? External screw tip should then be MUCH more common than internal screw tips, but they are not.
Reason for Screw Tip Spouts: Screw tips used more material, required additional tools, and took longer to make than a standard integral spout, yet both type spouts could be very attractive. So why were screw tips so heavily used on better Pennsylvania horns [and to a lesser extent on horns elsewhere]? Screw tips offered two big advantages over integral tips: 1) they protected the horn body from damage caused by major splits/ruptures of the spout, and more importantly, 2) damaged screw tips could be replaced to make the horn “as good as new” again… which was not possible with a damaged integral spout. A fine Tansel or Mercer County horn with a damaged spout was thereafter a damaged horn, and any repairs detracted from its appearance and devalued it for the owner. But a threaded screw tip, when damaged, could easily be removed and replaced with a new tip from a nearby hornsmith or mechanic. A nicely turned replacement kept the horn fully functional and attractive for the owner, protecting his investment in a more expensive powder horn.
An unknown hornsmith in Pennsylvania realized one day that an interchangeable spout tip would solve the age-old problem of broken spouts on powder horns. By doing so, he extended a horn’s working life almost indefinitely while ensuring it retained its full visual and functional value for the owner.
Final Thought: Knowing that screw tips could be replaced when damaged explains why a screw tip horn may have a plug/body/collar that fits well within a known school, but its screw tip differs a bit from the norm and weakens its attribution. The horn may simply have a replaced tip by a different hand!