Lot 205
205
A Very Fine Pair Of 22-Bore Flintlock Box-Lock Pistols
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus bu… Read more
A Very Fine Pair Of 22-Bore Flintlock Box-Lock Pistols

BY GRIFFIN & TOW, LONDON, CIRCA 1771

Details
A Very Fine Pair Of 22-Bore Flintlock Box-Lock Pistols
By Griffin & Tow, London, circa 1771
With swamped two-stage sighted barrels engraved 'London' on the top of each breech and secured by a horizontal arm on each side, the right arm incorporating the pan and steel assembly, each steel-spring adjustable for tension and connected to its steel by an open-jawed anti-friction link, signed border engraved actions finely engraved with rococo ornament, engraved thumbpiece safety-catches, engraved trigger-guards, swelling flat-sided finely figured walnut butts, engraved flat silver pommels and escutcheons, and original horn-tipped ramrods, each with worm (iron parts with a few areas of surface pitting and discolouration, but overall in very fine condition), London proof marks, silver maker's mark of John King
12¼in. (31.1cm.) (2)
Provenance
The Ashburnham Settled Estates (Ashburnham Park), Sotheby & Co., London, 12 June 1953, lot 179 (£55 to Neal)
Literature
W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1740-1790, p. 97
Idem, Messrs Griffin & Tow and W. Bailes, p. 124, plate 55
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

These pistols have much in common with the pair of Griffin & Tow pistols supplied to William Constable of Burton Constable Hall in June 1771 (Great British Gunmakers 1740-1790, pp. 96-7, Messrs Griffin & Tow and W. Bailes, pp. 119-123), and with a single Twigg pistol sold from the W. Keith Neal Collection in these Rooms, 8 November 1995, lot 255

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