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A Fine And Very Rare Pair Of Saxon 50-Bore Long Wheel-Lock Holster Pistols image 1
A Fine And Very Rare Pair Of Saxon 50-Bore Long Wheel-Lock Holster Pistols image 2
Lot 216*

A Fine And Very Rare Pair Of Saxon 50-Bore Long Wheel-Lock Holster Pistols
Circa 1620, Probably Dresden

25 July 2007, 10:30 BST
London, Knightsbridge

£20,000 - £30,000

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A Fine And Very Rare Pair Of Saxon 50-Bore Long Wheel-Lock Holster Pistols
Circa 1620, Probably Dresden

With minor differences, with slender tapering barrels each with sharply raised moulding at the muzzle and decorated at the muzzle and breech with three panels of running florets against stippled grounds, the breeches struck with the mark of Valentin Geitner of Dresden (Neue Støckel 4648), one with a further mark, 'DP' in shield, beneath, tangs decorated en suite with the breeches, bright flat locks, one struck with a maker's mark 'GD' over 'B' in a trefoil, each with exposed wheel and blued chiselled bracket, engraved blued pans each with sprung sliding pan-cover and release button, baluster cocks with chiselled cock-springs, blued steel pivoting safety-catches opposite the locks, fruitwood full stocks (minor chips beneath one lock) profusely inlaid with fine brass wire scrollwork enriched with engraved mother-of-pearl roundels against a ground of numerous small brass pins, each side opposite the lock with a mother-of-pearl oval engraved with a profile bust of a Roman emperor, and with three mother-of-pearl plaques along each side of the fore-ends and around the barrel tangs engraved with scrolling arabesques, globular butts of octagonal section inlaid en suite and each with small mother-of-pearl button terminal, slender blued trigger-guards, engraved horn fore-end caps (forward ramrod-pipes missing), original iron-tipped ramrods inlaid with brass wire and pins en suite with the stocks, and in fine condition overall (2)
53.3 cm. and 54.6 cm. barrels

Footnotes

The decoration on the barrels of these pistol appears on the barrel and lock of a related wheel-lock pistol preserved in the Saxon Electoral armoury in the Historiches Museum, Dresden (HMD: 1423). See Johannes Schöbel, Princely Arms And Armour, 1975, pp. 160 and 180, No. 122 (illustrated in black and white)

For a very similar pair of pistols see Sotheby's Monaco, Armes Anciennes Collection Charles Draeger, 7 December 1987, lot 200

Additional information

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