A Rare 12-Bore Breech-Loading Percussion Blunderbuss-Pistol On The Clanricarde System

This pistol was finished on 28 February 1832, and sold to Mrs. Anne Cooper
J. de Burgh, Marquis of Clanricarde, patented his system on 15 July 1831 (British Patent No. 6139). The chamber is designed to accept a paper cartridge containing twelve quarter-circle projectiles, a charge of powder, and a detonating cap which was removed and placed on the nipple. The inventor claimed that the projectiles 'will be so scattered laterally by the flattened bell shaped end of the barrel as to constitute a most formidable weapon of defence'

See Lewis Winant, Firearms Curiosa, p. 256, plates 301-2; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Early Firearms of Great Britain and Ireland From The Collection of Clay P. Bedford, p. 127, cat. no. 132

Cf. the cased example (No. 4376) sold from the W. Keith Neal Collection at Christie's, King Street, on 9 November 2000, lot 168 (£52, 875 including premium)

Special Notice

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