Two 38-Bore South German Wheel-Lock Holster Pistols (Puffer), Almost Forming A Pair

LATE 16TH CENTURY

Details

Two 38-Bore South German Wheel-Lock Holster Pistols (Puffer), Almost Forming A Pair
Late 16th Century
Each with blued swamped two-stage barrel struck on the top of the breech with an Augsburg mark and a maker's mark 'AZ' (?) with an orb and cross (Stckel 1840), blued lock each with bright border and struck with Nuremberg mark and a maker's mark, respectively 'IV' (Neue Stckel 3640) and 'CF' (?) (Neue Stckel 2168), pierced engraved wheel-cover, safety-catch, engraved flat cock, engraved sliding pan-cover with slotted release button, blackened full stock inlaid with engraved staghorn panels between horn lines, within borders engraved with ropework and overlapping foliage, and on the left side with two mermen, one holding a shield (minor repair and restoration to inlay), compressed pommel inset with circular horn medallions each engraved with a flower-head, and original iron-tipped ramrod
19in. (48.2cm.) (2)

Lot Essay

For a similar brace of pistols in the Bayerishes Armeemuseum, Munich (inv. no.s #51/125 and #51/126), see Merrill Lindsay, One Hundred Great Guns, p. 52. Others are in the Wallace Collection (inv. no. A 1148), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 14.25.1402a), the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (see Erwin Schalkhauer, Handfeuerwaffen, pp. 107-8, no.s 86-87), and in the Odescalchi Collection, Rome (inv. no.s 248-9)
A single pistol pistol from the same series was sold in these Rooms, 8 July 1980, lot 157, and a similar example at Christie's South Kensington, 15 July 1998, lot 266 (14,950)

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