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Lot 48
A Rare 20-Bore Flintlock Mail Coach PistolBy J. Harding & Son, Boro, London, Dated 1833
24 June – 8 July 2025, 12:00 BST
Online, London, KnightsbridgeSold for £1,536 inc. premium
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A Rare 20-Bore Flintlock Mail Coach Pistol
By J. Harding & Son, Boro, London, Dated 1833
By J. Harding & Son, Boro, London, Dated 1833
With brass barrel signed in full in capitals along the flat at the breech, a letter 'T' beyond, and 'FOR HIS MAJESTYS MAIL COACHES' around the muzzle, plain tang, bright flat bevelled lock signed in capitals and dated across the stepped tail, safety-catch, figured full stock (old split in front of the lock and on the opposite side of the fore-end) with rounded butt, brass mounts of regulation type comprising scroll side-plate, butt-cap, trigger-guard and ramrod-pipes, and horn-tipped wooden ramrod, London proof marks and crowned broad arrow mark
22.5 cm. barrel
22.5 cm. barrel
Footnotes
Cf. a pair of very similar pistols by the same maker and sold in these Rooms, Antique Arms, Armour and Modern Sporting Guns..., 29 July 2009, lot 485
James Harding is recorded as Gunmaker to General Post Office and was in business with his son at 82 Blackman Street, Borough, London between 1834 and 1836
For further information and for details of firearms built by Harding for the Post Office see Frederick Wilkinson, Those entrusted With Arms...,, 2002, pp. 120, 121, and for a record of existing examples pp. 254-256, Appendix 4




