A Spanish 16-Bore Madrid-Lock Belt Pistol
A Spanish 16-Bore Madrid-Lock Belt Pistol
Signed Levis (sic) Deop, Circa 1765
With blued swamped two-stage barrel turned and chiselled with foliage at the girdle, octagonal breech with two gold-lined punzónes (gold mostly missing) of Eudal Pous (Neue Støckel 8083 and Lavin 81) within nine small silver-inlaid tree-shaped marks, gold-lined touch-hole, engraved tang, signed flat bevelled lock engraved with rocailles, pan with water-drains and lip fitting into a recess in the steel, figured full stock with moulded borders and carved with rocailles (chipped) behind the barrel tang, brass mounts engraved with rocailles and foliage, comprising shaped side-plate, spurred pommel with silver cap embossed and chased as a human face, and trigger-guard with foliate finial, silver escutcheon en suite, turned and faceted brass ramrod-pipes, and later wooden ramrod (barrel and lock with some surface rust, belt hook missing)
20.7 cm. barrel
Sold for £812 inc. premium

Footnotes

  • A Luis Deop is recorded in Barcelona circa 1770. Eudal Pous was a Ripoll gunsmith who moved to Madrid and became armourer of the Royal Corps of Body Guards of Fernando VII. A military carbine by him with a sliding-primer fulminate lock dated 1817 is in the Museo del Ejército, Madrid (inv. no. 500.15.2047), and a similar lock for a civilian gun is in the Real Armeria (inv. no. K.291). He died or retired in 1827 and appears to have been replaced by Blas Zuloaga. See James Lavin, A History of Spanish Firearms, 1965, pp. 145, 236 and 274, pl. 58

Category: Arms and Armour


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