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A Rare Pair Of 22-Bore Scottish All-Metal Snaphaunce Belt Pistols With Left- And Right-Hand Locks

SIGNED AL, CIRCA 1645-50

Details

A Rare Pair Of 22-Bore Scottish All-Metal Snaphaunce Belt Pistols With Left- And Right-Hand Locks
Signed AL, circa 1645-50
With multi-staged barrels each with iron bead fore-sight and raised mouldings overlaid with silver engraved with strapwork, foliage and expanded flowers, and with a rectangular silver plaque engraved with owner's crest, at the rear of each breech a pronounced slotted ramp, bevelled brass locks (originally gilt) without half-cock position, each finely engraved with foliage, expanded flowers, and cabling, and each struck with maker's mark 'AL', a crowned hammer between (one pan-cover an old replacement), iron three-quarter stocks inlaid with silver bands engraved en suite with those on the barrel, lobe butts of oval section (one repaired), long engraved silver-inlaid belt hooks, engraved silver triggers and prickers (one pricker loose, and now with a spare replacement), and later iron ramrods (some wear and minor pitting)
17in. (43.1cm.) (3)

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 85, plates 22a-d, and colour plate VIII
The Swords and the Sorrows, exhibition catalogue, cat. no. 5:10, p. 68 (illustrated)

Exhibited

The Swords and the Sorrows, Culloden Commemorative Exhibition, Culloden, 16 April-20 September 1996

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

Three similar but less ornate pistols are in the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, comprising a single (dated 1647), and a pair (dated 1650). The former is illustrated in W. Reid, 'Scottish Firearms', Pollard's History of Firearms, p. 412, and Charles E. Whitelaw, A Treatise on Scottish Hand Firearms, plate IV, fig. 16

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