A PRESENTATION REVOLVER BY A. FRANCOTTE, No. 2811, Liège manufacture, plain blued frame, cylinder and barrel, with deep blue guilloche enamel butt set with the Arms of Imperial Russia (1857-1917), a double-headed eagle bearing an orb (stone missing) and sceptre, with the Arms of Moscow on the breast and four other shields on each wing (represented in this instance by stones), the butt encircled by a gold band

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A PRESENTATION REVOLVER BY A. FRANCOTTE, No. 2811, Liège manufacture, plain blued frame, cylinder and barrel, with deep blue guilloche enamel butt set with the Arms of Imperial Russia (1857-1917), a double-headed eagle bearing an orb (stone missing) and sceptre, with the Arms of Moscow on the breast and four other shields on each wing (represented in this instance by stones), the butt encircled by a gold band
Approx. .25 calibre
]

Lot Essay

It is understood that the pistol was given to an English officer serving in Russia during the First World War, by a maid of Czar Nicholas II's household, prior to their despatch to Ekaterinburg and subsequent murder. The pistol was purchased from this officer in the 1920s by a Lt.-Col. E.C. Kensington.

It was after the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, that Czar Nicholas II, the Czarina Alexandra and their family, household servants and doctor were taken to Ekaterinburg in the Urals; they were murdered there by their Bolshevik guards on or about 17th July 1918, but recent discoveries at the apparent burial site have shed new light on the numbers supposedly killed

Some slight damage to enamel (see illustration)

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