Pistol

In the days of the British Raj there was no shortage of would-be shikaris hoping to bag a tiger in India. At the same time plenty of London gunsmiths were ready to supply them with all the fire-power they could persuade them to buy.

From the 18th century onwards, the city of Birmingham was a major centre of the British gun-making industry.

The inscription London on the barrels of this pair of 19th century, silver-mounted flintlock pistols is entirely spurious.

Pistols remain one of the most popular of all categories among gun collectors and the winter sales in London proved a bumper season for handguns, from the earliest wheel-locks of the late 16th century to the semi-automatics which ushered in the modern age at the end of the 19th century.

The Thomas Del Mar (24% buyer’s premium) sale in London on December 5 included several excellent pairs of English pistols.

The highlight of the specialist sale of firearms and militaria held by Pook & Pook (22% buyer’s premium) in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on November 17 was this matched pair of 18th century flintlock pistols.

The Scottish gun-making workshop of Doune in Perthshire produced pistols that were a firearm of choice for highland clansmen but were also favoured by wealthy socialites.

The National Ballistics and Intelligence Service (NABIS) has warned of a rise in defectively deactivated firearms offered at auction since the law changed this summer.

Trade associations have defended the current firearms laws in the UK amid accusations on a BBC Panorama programme of a ‘loophole’ in gun control.

Signed in gold to the 10in (25cm) damascus barrels Manton London, the best-known name among London gunsmiths, a cased pair of 25-bore flintlock duelling pistols led the specialist arms and armour sale held by Antony Cribb (22% buyer’s premium) at Abingdon on July 24.

It took a bid of €60,000 (£53,100) to secure a pair of flintlock pistols of c.1730 from the armoury of the Princes of Lobkowitz at Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich in May.

The latest recent arms and armour sales on both sides of the Atlantic serves only to reinforce the impression that pistols remain a huge favourite with collectors in this field.

The same French collection that brought the fine pair of Boutet pistols to the Thomas Del Mar Sale on December 6 also included a number of later Continental pistols that were rare and certainly unfamiliar to most British collectors.

Holt’s (25/20% buyer’s premium) sale in London on December 14 included two prime examples of weapons designed to get their owners out of a tight corner.

When the US Government invited arms manufacturers to tender designs for a new standard-issue pistol for the US Army in the early 1900s the winner was Colt, with a system devised by John Moses Browning.

Top-seller at guns specialist Southams (15% buyer’s premium) in Bedford on September 20 was acased pair of flintlock double-barrelled travelling pistols.

Cased pairs of pistols remain a particular favourite with collectors, being relatively compact and often in excellent condition after centuries cocooned in their brass-bound mahogany boxes.