VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus bu… Read more

A Fine And Rare Cased 15-Bore Breech-Loading Percussion Blunderbuss-Pistol On The Clanricarde System

BY JAMES WILKINSON & SON, NO. 27 PALL MALL, LONDON, NO. 4376 FOR 1832

Details

A Fine And Rare Cased 15-Bore Breech-Loading Percussion Blunderbuss-Pistol On The Clanricarde System
By James Wilkinson & Son, No. 27 Pall Mall, London, No. 4376 for 1832
With browned twist sighted barrel with belled flattened oval muzzle and engraved with foliage at the muzzle and breech, foliate engraved case-hardened action with sliding tip-up chamber, the top plate signed 'Wilkinson & Son Pall Mall London' on three scrolls, at the rear a blued pivoting block with engraved case-hardened locking lever, and at the front a blued thumb-plate with chequered finial, scroll engraved case-hardened tang incorporating the back-sight, signed scroll engraved back-action lock with engraved safety-catch, figured walnut half-stock, flattened chequered butt cut for the shoulder stock, scroll engraved blued iron mounts, case-hardened trigger-plate with pineapple finial, and silver escutcheon, in virtually unused condition throughout: in original lined and fitted mahogany case with finely figured attachable shoulder stock, and accessories including powder-flask, original bullet mould, and a number of paper cartridges, the lid with trade label, flush-fitting carrying handle, and circular escutcheon, the whole set in exceptional condition, London proof marks
15¾in. (40cm.)

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

This pistol was finished on 10 March 1832, and sold to the Earl of Bradford

J. de Burgh, Marquis of Clanricarde, patented his system on 15 July 1831 (British Patent No. 6139). The chamber is designed to accept a paper cartridge containing twelve quarter-circle projectiles, a charge of powder, and a detonating cap which was removed and placed on the nipple. The inventor claimed that the projectiles "will be so scattered laterally by the flattened bell shaped end of the barrel as to constitute a most formidable weapon of defence"

See Lewis Winant, Firearms Curiosa, p. 256, plates 301-2; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Early Firearms of Great Britain and Ireland From The Collection of Clay P. Bedford, p. 127, no. 132

More from FINE ANTIQUE FIREARMS FROM THE W. KEITH NEAL COLLECTION

View All