CIRCA 1680, REMOUNTED BY WILLIAM TURVEY, LONDON, CIRCA 1740

Details

A Rare 48-Bore Six-Shot Snaphaunce Revolving Carbine
Circa 1680, remounted by William Turvey, London, circa 1740
With sighted tapering octagonal brass barrel swelling at the muzzle, hand-rotated brass cylinder held in each of the firing positions by a sprung iron bar passing through the back-sight, each chamber fitted with sliding brass pan-cover pushed forward for each shot by a sliding iron bar attached to the cock, finely engraved tang, signed flat bevelled lock finely engraved with rococo ornament and a trophy of the chase of Parisian pattern book inspiration, figured walnut take-down butt (chipped below the lock) carved with a shell in relief behind the barrel tang, finely engraved brass mounts including escutcheon with the crest of Curzon, Barons Scarsdale, and trigger-guard engraved with a rose, and iron ramrod (ramrod and parts of the mechanism replaced)
14½in. (36.8cm.) barrel

Provenance

The Earl of Scarsdale, Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (anon. sale, Sotheby & Co., London, 16 November 1970, lot 135 - £1,600 to Neal)

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 187, plates 61a-b

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

William Turvey, son of Edward (1), was admitted freeman of the Gunmakers' Company in 1711 and was Master in 1733. His widow, Sarah, continued his business after his death in 1741. The Turveys were among the best London gunmakers of the first half of the 18th century

Cf. a similar revolving carbine by John Dafte, London, used by Colonel Samuel Colt in a paper delivered to the Society of Mechanical Engineers in London in 1853, and now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn. (inv. no. 1905. 1022), illustrated in Howard L. Blackmore, Guns and Rifles of the World, plate 568

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