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Lot 359*

A Fine Cased Pair Of 40-Bore Percussion Duelling Pistols
By John Manton & Son, Dover Street, London, No. 9523 For 1824

29 April 2010, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £10,800 inc. premium

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A Fine Cased Pair Of 40-Bore Percussion Duelling Pistols
By John Manton & Son, Dover Street, London, No. 9523 For 1824

With rebrowned twist octagonal sighted multi-groove rifled barrels (scattered minor pitting) each signed along the top flat and with blued fore-sight, foliate scroll engraved case-hardened patent breeches each with engraved pierced platinum plug, foliate scroll engraved tangs each incorporating a back-sight, signed border engraved flat detented locks each decorated with foliate scrollwork and with a safety-catch behind the foliate engraved hammer, finely figured half-stocks (minor repair behind one barrel tang) with chequered rounded butts (chequering damaged on one side of one butt), border engraved steel trigger-guard serial numbered and engraved with foliage on the bow, and retaining much original blueing on the inside, trigger-plates each with foliate engraved pineapple-shaped finial, vacant silver escutcheons and barrel-bolt escutcheons, horn fore-end caps, and horn-tipped ramrods, one probably original: in original lined and fitted mahogany case with accessories including brass-mounted three-way flask covered in red leather, mainspring-clamp, combination tool, bullet mould and patch-cutter, the interior of the lid with maker's trade label, the exterior with circular brass escutcheon centred on a circular flush-fitting brass carrying handle, London proof marks
23.5 cm. barrel

Footnotes

Provenance:
Major 'Dick' Cooper, wealthy bon viveur, accomplished big game hunter and fisherman, was a friend of Ernest Hemingway and Winston Guest. He hunted with Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke in the Congo (now Zaire) - see von Blixen's African Hunter (translated from Swedish in 1938), chapters VIII and IX, pp. 119-143 - and inherited von Blixen's rifles. Keith Neal met Cooper at the British Sporting Exhibition at the Imperial Institute, South Kensington in 1938, and helped him to put together a substantial collection of antique firearms. Cooper was godfather to Keith Neal's daughter, Diana. Having settled in the United States after World War II, he kept on his farm in Africa (near Lake Manyara, Tanzania), and is said to have died in 1952 by drowning in a Cape buffalo hollow. Cooper enjoyed the unusual distinction of having shot down a low-flying German aircraft from the trenches in France in 1917 with his .450 Holland & Holland rifle

Literature:
W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, The Mantons: Gunmakers, 1967, p. 105
D.H.L. Back, The Mantons 1782-1878, 1993, p. 52

Additional information

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