Maets Cannon

Circa 1892

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Specs:

Price $990 Available

  • Cannon & Stand 26.8 lbs 48” W x 19” H x 10” D
  • Gun only 10.0 lbs

Inventor:

Steam powered weapon designed by Bernard Maets, a little known but very prolific inventor of the 19th century. Maets worked in his Wisconsin laboratory/shop from 1878 to 1907.  Little is known about him before or after this time.

Type and Function:

This cannon is one a series of prototypes of a weapon with tremendous penetration capability in most materials and is probably the most powerful of the handheld weapons developed by Maets. The cannon is known as a triliquid system, while many of Maets’ units operate a binary systems.  Little is know at this time on the exact composition of the liquids used to create the steam that powers the equipment.

What is known about the weapon is limited to information contained in a small notebook found with the weapon. Test sample #8 was also packed in the same crate along with a small stand which includes parts of a steam charging station. Test sample # 8 is a solid steel block three inches thick with a perfect hole blasted clean through.  Attempts to fire the weapon since its discovery have failed to produce the results evident in the test sample.

Recovery Site:

This model was discovered in a warehouse in London in 1943 following a Nazi bombing raid. How it came to be packed in a crate in London is unknown at this time.  There appears to be some connection to a visit that Bernard Maets had with the author Jules Verne in 1893.

Principal Investigator:

This object has been recovered, studied and restored by Ed Kidera.

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