50 Things That Made The Modern Economy with Tim Hartford

1. Sweltering Afternoon in July 1785

Officials, dignitaries and a few infuriated gunsmiths gathered at the Chateau de Vasse-Saint,

a spectacular castle to the east of Paris.

They were there to see the demonstration of a new sort of flintlocked musket, designed

by Honouré Blanc, a gunsmith from Avignon so despised by his fellows that he had been

hold away in the dungeons of the Chateau for his own protection.

Down in the cool of the castle cellars, Monsieur Blanc brought in 50 locks, the lock being

the firing mechanism at the heart of a flintlock weapon.

Priscly, he took a part half of them, and with the insusions for which the French are

famous, he tossed their component parts into boxes.

There was a box for the main springs, a box for the hammers, a box for the face plates,

and a box for the gunpowder pans.

Like a master of ceremonies, ostentatiously agitating and urn full of numbered lottery

balls, Monsieur Blanc shook these boxes to mix their components together.

Then he calmly pulled out the parts at random and began to reassemble them into flintlocks.

What was he thinking?

Everyone present knew that each handcrafted gun was unique.

You couldn't just jam a part from one gun into another and expect either to work, but

they did.

One had taken enormous pains to ensure that all the parts were precisely the same.

It was a spectacular demonstration of the power of interchangeable parts.

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