Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A Very Rare 8-Bore Flintlock Sporting Gun image 1
A Very Rare 8-Bore Flintlock Sporting Gun image 2
Lot 524

A Very Rare 8-Bore Flintlock Sporting Gun
By James Purdey, Princes St., Leicester Sq., London, No. 44, Circa 1818

26 November 2014, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £11,500 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Arms and Armour specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

A Very Rare 8-Bore Flintlock Sporting Gun
By James Purdey, Princes St., Leicester Sq., London, No. 44, Circa 1818

Expertly reconverted from percussion, with rebrowned twist sighted barrel turned at the girdle, octagonal breech becoming polygonal and signed in gold gothic script along the top flat, patent recessed breech with gold-lined rectangular maker's stamp, gold lines and platinum-lined touch-hole, foliate scroll engraved tang, foliate engraved flat lock with intercepting sears, signed on a panel against a starburst between foliage beneath the pan and engraved 'Patent' on the tail behind the patent safety-catch engaging with the rear of the pierced cock, rainproof pan and large roller, figured half-stock (repaired split opposite the lock, fore-end repaired in front of the lock), border engraved steel mounts (some wear and pitting, some engraving refreshed) decorated with foliage and comprising butt-plate and trigger-guard, the latter with patent grip-safety, trigger-plate with pineapple finial, vacant silver escutcheon, silver barrel-bolt escutcheons and fore-end cap, and brass-mounted ramrod, London proof marks and Charles Lancaster's barrelsmith's mark
81.8 cm. barrel

Footnotes

Literature:
L. Patrick Unsworth, The Early Purdeys, 1996, p. 24, 28, 112 and 181, pls. 2 and 3

Only ten flintlock guns by Purdey are known to exist of which this is the third earliest. The earliest (no. 14) was discovered by Peter Scott-Edeson in 1994 in the reserve collection of the then Royal Museum of Scotland in Chambers Street, Edinburgh. See Donald Dallas, Purdey, Gun & Rifle Makers ..., 2000, p. 9, 35-36, eight black and white illustrations in text, colour pls. 3-5

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Cased Pair Of Scottish 50-Bore Percussion Duelling Or Target Pistols By Alex.r Martin, Glasgow, Mid-19th Century

The medals and associate ephemera and uniforms of Arthur Watts, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons

A Pair Of Highland All-Metal Percussion Belt Pistols Signed Paton & Walsh Perth, Mid 19th century

A Silver-Mounted Left-Hand Dagger, probably German, Italian or English Late 16th Century Or Later

FOUR REPRODUCTION CARVED POWDER HORNS/FLASKS.late 20th century.

A COLLECTION OF ANTIQUE AND REPRODUCTION POWDER FLASKS AND RELATED SPORTING ITEMS.

THREE VICTORIAN ARMS AND ARMOUR DECORATIVE ITEMS.