BY H. WHITEHEAD, LONDON(?), EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Details

A Highly Unusual 18-Bore Flintlock Walking-Stick Gun
By H. Whitehead, London(?), early 18th Century
With tapering rebrowned barrel fitted with removable iron-tipped wooden ferrule at the muzzle, and a lugged tapering spindle at the rear of the breech, locking the barrel into the butt, gold-lined touch-hole, signed border engraved flat bevelled back-action lock with chiselled acanthus details, the steel with applied gold lip retaining the priming-powder when the barrel is detached, engraved tang with chiselled integral back-sight, moulded lightly carved figured walnut butt (minor chip), made to divide into two pieces, and finely chiselled iron mounts including vase-shaped escutcheon, pierced side-plate decorated in relief with foliage and a cartouche, and butt-plate with long engraved tang, and pivoting cover engraved with a Roman emperor's head, revealing a cavity containing a folding iron ramrod, complete with later walking-stick handle of wood and iron, made to fit the spindle at the rear of the barrel (the gun with scattered minor pitting, some screws replaced), London proof marks, barrel-forger's mark W, a trefoil above
35in. (88.9cm.) barrel (2)

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 323, plates 133a-e

Exhibited

The Game Fair, Longleat House, 1962

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Made for a gentleman collector of birds, other than game, for mounting by a taxidermist, and for display in glazed cabinets. Such guns were often loaded with dust shot, so as not to damage the feathers, and were made to be hidden, in view of the likely need for trespassing

A very similar gun by Andrew Dolep is in the Historisches Museum, Dresden

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