Lot 133
133
A RARE GERMAN WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL with long octagonal barrel, plain pointed tang, enclosed rounded lock of bright steel lightly engraved with flowerheads and foliage, held by three screws and spanned from the opposite side through the stock, unusual flush-fitting rounded cock, ebonised fruitwood full stock, bright steel mounts including plain trigger-guard, and domed oval pommel-cap and pivoted spindle-cover each engraved en suite with the lock, pierced ramrod-pipe, reeded fore-end cap, and iron-tipped ramrod (broken), probably original, unsigned and unmarked, circa 1650

Details
A RARE GERMAN WHEEL-LOCK HOLSTER PISTOL with long octagonal barrel, plain pointed tang, enclosed rounded lock of bright steel lightly engraved with flowerheads and foliage, held by three screws and spanned from the opposite side through the stock, unusual flush-fitting rounded cock, ebonised fruitwood full stock, bright steel mounts including plain trigger-guard, and domed oval pommel-cap and pivoted spindle-cover each engraved en suite with the lock, pierced ramrod-pipe, reeded fore-end cap, and iron-tipped ramrod (broken), probably original, unsigned and unmarked, circa 1650
27½in.

Lot Essay

Almost certainly by a member of the Gsell family of gunmakers of Arzberg. Cf. the pair of wheel-lock pistols (dated 1652) with similarly constructed and spanned locks signed 'Jakob Gsell Artzberg', preserved in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (No. 3.O. N611). See L. Tarassuk, Antique European And American Firearms At The Hermitage Museum, 1972, p. 171, Nos. 181 and 182; and Claude Blair, Pistols Of The World, 1968, Nos. 47 and 48

Another pistol of this type is illustrated and described in Wallace B. Gussler and James D. Lavin, Decorated Firearms 1540-1870 From the Collection of Clay P. Bedford, No. 54, pp. 140-1

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