BY WILLIAM PALMER, LONDON, LATE 17TH CENTURY

Details

A Rare 30-Bore Flintlock Turn-Over Sporting Gun
By William Palmer, London, late 17th Century
With three-stage sighted barrels released by a lever in the front of the trigger-guard, the breech sections octagonal then polygonal, long engraved tang secured by two screws, signed rounded back-action lock engraved with strawberry foliage and grotesques (cock replaced), moulded figured walnut full stock (replaced around the middle of the 18th century) carved in relief with a shell behind the barrel tang, iron mounts including pierced and engraved foliate side-plate involving a bird and a grotesque head, and iron butt-cap chiselled with scrolls, and later ramrod (iron parts with some pitting, mainly on the barrels), London proof marks
42¼in. (107.3cm.) barrels

Literature

J.N. George, English Guns and Rifles, pp. 68-9, plate IV (2)
W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, pp. 172-3, plates 54a, b

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

There were two William Palmers, father and son, working in London circa 1680. The first was Master of the Gunmakers' Company in 1669, and died in 1681. The second was apprenticed to Robert Silke, and free of the Gunmakers' Company in 1677, but there is no documentary reference to him after 1680

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