This is a fabulous and scarce circa 1830-1860 Pennsylvania Long Rifle percission cap black powder long rifle chambered in .38 caliber by Whitmore & Wolff of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded around 1830, the company was started by Michael Whitmore and Christian H. Wolff in Pittsburgh. The name appeared as Whitmore & Wolff, Whitmore, Wolff & Co., and Whitmore, Wolff, Duff & Co. The rifle displays a 40" long octagonal barrel, maple stock, fixed sights, brass butt plate, double trigger design, brass trigger guard, and etched lock plate. The lock plate is marked reading " WHITMORE & WOLFF PITTSBURGH PA." with the plate etched with a scene of sporting birds in flight surrounded by flora. The top of the barrel is marked with faded cursive. The Pittsburgh rifles where commonly know as hardware store guns with curly maple stocks and generally lacking the more ornate trappings of similar rifles along with being chambered in smaller calibers that other Kentucky or Pennsylvania rifles. Overall with piece shows fair condition for its age with non operational mechanics and a large split in the stock by the lock plate. The rifle weighs 8lbs 6oz. No Serial Number. This firearm qualifies as an Antique, and does not require FFL Transfer or NICS Background Check. The American Longrifle, more commonly, but less correctly, known as the ‘Kentucky rifle’, was described by Captain John G. W. Dillin in the dedication to his seminal 1924 book, The Kentucky Rifle: “From a flat bar of soft iron, hand forged into a gun barrel; laboriously bored and rifled with crude tools; fitted with a stock hewn from a maple tree in the neighboring forest; and supplied with a lock hammered to shape on the anvil; an unknown smith, in a shop long since silent, fashioned a rifle which changed the whole course of world history; made possible the settlement of a continent; and ultimately freed our country of foreign domination. Light in weight; graceful in line; economical in consumption of powder and lead; fatally precise; distinctly American; it sprang into immediate popularity; and for a hundred years was a model often slightly varied but never radically changed.”