BY JOSEPH MANTON, LONDON, CIRCA 1820

Details

A Unique 17-Bore Break-Action Target Pistol On The Pauly Compressed Air System
By Joseph Manton, London, circa 1820
With two-stage twist sighted barrel cut with eight shallow grooves and signed on the top flat of the breech 'Joseph Manton Patent Hanover Square London' and secured by a spring-catch on the left side, removable iron cartridge (adapted), enclosed action finely engraved with scrollwork, a martial trophy and a tiger-mask, engraved external cocking lever, hinged cover engraved with a further martial trophy and secured by a small sprung catch on the left side of the action, trigger-guard engraved en suite, long back-strap, and chequered figured walnut butt carved with a scallop-shell on each side of the pommel (some surface pitting and discolouration, mainly on the barrel), London proof marks
15in. (38.1cm.)

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, The Mantons: Gunmakers, pp. 31, 268-9, plates 117-119
D.H.L. Back, The Mantons 1782-1878, p. 118, plates 87 a-c

Special notice

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

Lot Essay

This pistol closely follows the Swiss inventor J.S. Pauly's British Patent No. 3833 of 4 August 1814, and No. 4026 of 14 May 1816. The jet of air forced through two small holes at the front of the enclosed cylinder generates enough heat to ignite the explosive composition in the iron cartridge
Two similar pistols are recorded, both unsigned but with London proof marks and the barrel-forger's mark of William Fullerd - one in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Collections (inv. no. 1885 S 564), and the other formerly in the Keith Neal and subsequently Clay P. Bedford collections (exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1971 - cat. no. 131). A third example on the compressed air system is the prototype formerly in the collection of Norris Kennard, now in the Royal Armouries, Leeds (inv. no. XII. 4877)

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