Lot 164
164
A Rare Cased 54-Bore Percussion Rifled Target Pistol With Left-Hand Lock
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus bu… Read more
A Rare Cased 54-Bore Percussion Rifled Target Pistol With Left-Hand Lock

BY JAMES PURDEY, 314½ OXFORD STREET, LONDON, NO. 1784 FOR 1829

Details
A Rare Cased 54-Bore Percussion Rifled Target Pistol With Left-Hand Lock
By James Purdey, 314½ Oxford Street, London, No. 1784 for 1829
With signed rebrowned twist octagonal sighted barrel cut with sixteen grooves, patent breech (stamped '1764') with platinum line and pierced platinum plug, shaped tang finely engraved with scrollwork on a matted ground, signed case-hardened scroll engraved serial numbered detented lock with blued safety-catch, ebonized half-stock, chequered butt, finely engraved case-hardened iron mounts, set trigger, and silver escutcheon (some minor surface pitting, mainly on the barrel): in original fitted oak case lined in red baize, with numerous accessories including leather-covered flask, the bullet mould numbered '2755', the lid with trade label, London proof marks
16in. (40.7cm.)
Literature
W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, British Gunmakers Their Trade Cards, Cases and Equipment 1760-1860, plate 453
L. Patrick Unsworth, The Early Purdeys, pp. 64, 131
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

Originally sold on 28 September 1829 as a 'best finished Pistol with Mahogany case and apparatus' for £15 plus part exchange: the case and accessories £3.13.16d.
This pistol has the distinction of being the only single-barrelled Purdey pistol recorded with a left-hand lock. It is also the earliest recorded instance of a Purdey pistol with blackened stock. Whatever the purpose of its unusual design, it was returned to Purdey, who within four months of the original sale, sold it to his son-in-law, Joseph Lang
According to Keith Neal it was made for St. George Gore (1811-1878), a valued Purdey client, whose photograph used to hang in the Long Room at Audley House, and who commissioned the highly unusual pair of rifled target pistols with horn spurs on the butts, Nos. 1689 and 1690, sold from the W. Keith Neal Collection in these Rooms, 9 November 2000, Lot 166 (£30,550 including premium)

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