BY JAMES FREEMAN, LONDON, LONDON SILVER HALLMARKS, CIRCA 1730

Details

A Pair Of 32-Bore Flintlock Pocket Pistols
By James Freeman, London, London silver hallmarks, circa 1730
With turn-off cannon barrels each with bulbous muzzle bearing an unusual integral fore-sight, tapering octagonal then sixteen-sided breeches each engraved 'London' on the top flat and signed beneath the steel-spring, grooved shaped tangs, pans each with raised rim fitting into the pan-cover, swelling moulded figured walnut butts (minor bruising) each carved in relief with foliage behind the barrel tang, separate trigger-guards each with foliate finial, cast and chased silver rococo escutcheons, and silver pommels each cast and chased in relief with foliage and a grotesque mask (one cock repaired, top half of the other replaced), London proof marks, silver maker's mark JA
7¾in. (19.7cm.) (2)

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740, p. 414, plate 175

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

James Paul Freeman was admitted to the freedom of the Gunmakers' Company on 5 July 1716, and in the same year took over the premises in St. Martin's Lane previously occupied by Andrew Dolep. He was Master in 1732 and died in 1736. Both he and his son, James, are noted for their breech-loading pistols

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