German WW1 Motar ID

[Lochnagar]

Hello can any one help with the ID of this motar, it was captured 1.3.1916, a friend of mine has asked me to see if I can sell it for him but I have no idea what it is worth, it has been in his collection for the past 40 years. Any help on this matter would be greatfully recieved, many thanks to all.

[Dresden]

French early war mortar

[Dresden]

The French Army produced several quick responses to the need for trench mortars, some were field shop made from a variety of materials, the larger calibers were factory made

[Fr Cdn AT]

Hi, a bit of history that I translated because all the info I found so far on that particular mortar was in french. Hope this is right... used a translator but had to modify some of the text as those tools mainly translate word for word...

One of these mortars that make every body to talked about him during the last months of 1914 is the work of a polytechnicien, the Captain of artillery Cellerier, which, before the war, occupied a post to the technical Section of the artillery and directed the Laboratory of essays of the Conservatory of the arts and trades. In Argonne, where the French feel particularly the need to reply to the Minenwerfer, it notes, as everyone, that the shell bodies of the 77mm Shrapnel , that the Germans was sending them to profusion, once emptied from their payload, remain intact. And he noticed as well that the ejected cartridges from their own canon of 65mm enter into these bodies of 77, with the strictly necessary game. Then came the idea of using the body of the shrapnel projectile has a mortar tube and using the cartridge case filed up with either rock or pieces of metal with a bursting charge as a payload, just needed to pierce, towards the bottom, a hole for the passage of a wick for ignition
November 3rd , Capt. Cellerier presents his invention to his army corps Cmdt. The 4th, he executes an effective shooting on German networks. In the shortage that the French was into, these mortars find a real success with the infantrymen to whom they were delivered. Easy to make, they are able, fixed five or six tube, one beside each other, on a same full piece of inclined wood to 45 degrees. They can throw projectiles to a distance up to 250 or 300 meters their small bombs of 1.8 kg. The adjustability of the distance, was mainly achieve by variation of the load of BP. Of course, it did not allow, a shooting of precision. But this small canon, soon enough widely employed in Lorraine and in Champagne, supports the morale of the troops while awaiting more powerful equipment. Capt. Cellerier, received an official consecration November 27th, when Joffre asked to the Minister of the war to generalize the use of the mortar after some improvement were made.
Hope that was useful.
Here some more pict.
cellerier.jpg Cellerier mass Production.jpg Cellerier Mortar Firing.jpg Mortier Cellerier.jpg Section de mortier Cellerier.jpg

It is Called, Mortier de Cellerier. (Cellerier Mortar)
Cheers.
FCAT.

[Gspragge]

I had one of these many years ago ,a small one. there was no informaton at all.