1857 Belgium
The history of this weapon goes back to the end of the muzzle loading era. With the civil war ushering in the era of the breech loading metallic cartridge firearm and large stocks of muzzle loading weapons on-hand, countries needed a way to convert these weapons to a breech loading weapon. One of the first methods was the Snider or Tabatiere conversion.
By the late 1870’s large quantities of French converted rifles (from the Franco-Prussian War) were on the surplus market with no buyers. A decision was made to convert them into inexpensive shotguns. This was accomplished by reaming out the rifling in the barrels to make them smooth bore, scrubbing all the original marks off the rifles and then proof them with Belgium proof marks, cut the stocks from full stocks to half stocks and removing the rifle sights and installing a front sight bead.
Most were sold into North Africa to aide in harassing the British, but a number also made it to America, where they were typically sold to Indians. Some were purchased by Amish, who would drill a hole in the stock, pour Holy Water into it, and seal it with beeswax and blessed by a priest.
Very few survive with the plug still in place, but mine is retained. My wife's uncle received it from his father. When her uncle died, her aunt gave it to my father-in-law, who recently gave it to me. We're calling it the "in-law gun".
When I first took possession, I had no idea what it was, but after cleaning it up, I found the word "ZULU" stamped in the top of the barrel and was able to research it from there. This gun started it's life in 1857 as a muzzle-loading rifle, was converted to a breech-loader in 1867, and then was chopped down to a 12 ga breech-loading shotgun. All told, it's 165 years old and looks great hanging above my framed copies of the Declaration, Constitution, and Article of Confederation.
On top of the roll top desk is my AR-15 (pistol configuration) tequila decanter - last year's birthday gift from my wife.