BY BÉRINGER, PARIS, NO. 1993, CIRCA 1840

Details

A Cased Pair Of 22-Bore French Béringer Patent Breech-Loading Pistols
By Béringer, Paris, No. 1993, circa 1840
With sighted tapering browned twist rifled barrels each inscribed 'Inv.on Béringer Bté à Paris' in silver Gothic script, signed back-action locks and underlever actions retaining their case-hardened matt-grey finish and chiselled in low relief with interlaced strapwork and foliage against a punched ground, figured walnut butts, and iron mounts en suite with the locks and actions, the butt-caps each with lanyard ring: in original fitted brass-bound rosewood case lined in tooled crimson velvet with case-hardened bullet mould, the interior of the lid with stamped gilt signature, the exterior with central brass escutcheon engraved 'Mr. Abel Rainbeaux', in very fine original condition throughout
13½in. (34.3cm.)

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

Beatus Béringer of Paris and St. Etienne is recorded between 1835 and 1869. At the time these pistols were made his address in Paris was 6, rue du Coq Saint-Honoré. He exhibited at the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851

These pistols fire cartridges with annular ignition, probably of his own invention. He patented a combined system of percussion and pin-fire in 1839, an example of which is preserved in the Musée de la Chasse in Paris

Cf. a Béringer gun from the W. Keith Neal Collection sold at Christie's King Street, 8 November 1995, lot 59, and another offered at Christie's King Street, 20 November 1996, lot 335

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