A Rare Cased Pair of 20-bore Saw-Handled Officer's Pistols
Each pistol with 11 inch browned twist octagonal sighted barrel, breech with gold line, gold maker’s stamp and gold-lined touch-hole, border engraved tang with two lines of foliage and a martial trophy, border engraved flat bevelled detented locks each with gold-lined maker’s stamp, decorated with a starburst behind the rainproof pan and with martial trophies at the stepped tail, ‘French’ cock engraved en suite, engraved safety-catch and blued steel-spring with roller, figured half-stock with chequered rounded butt, iron mount for the shoulder-stock and flat oval pommel encircled by an engraved silver band and set with a silver escutcheon engraved with owner’s crest, engraved blued iron rear ramrod-pipes and spur trigger-guard, with engraved pineapple finial and decorated with a martial trophy and foliage on the bow, adjustable set trigger, silver barrel-bolt escutcheons and fore-end cap, original horn-tipped ramrod with iron worm, and some original finish: in original lined and fitted mahogany case with accessories including highly figured attachable iron-mounted shoulder-stock with cheek-piece, the pierced blued butt-plate engraved with a martial trophy on the heel tang, Sykes brass-mounted powder-flask retaining much of its original lacquered finish, turnscrew, mainspring clamp and bullet mould, the interior of the lid with illustrated maker’s trade label, the exterior with large oval brass plate incorporating a flush-fitting carrying handle
Literature: The Craft of the Gunmaker 1640-1870 (cat. no. 30, back cover colour illustration)
Note: Martin Brander and Thomas Potts are recorded at 70 Minories and Goodman’s Yard between 1802 and 1827