A Rare Pair Of 18-Bore Flintlock Silver-Mounted Holster Pistols
By Boulton Fecit Of London, Early 18th Century
With swamped two-stage barrels each with turned ring at the girdle, octagonal breeches becoming polygonal, each signed along the top flat and engraved with line borders along the angles, the rear of each breech with a band of engraved foliage, border engraved tangs, rounded locks each with moulded border, signed within a foliate cartouche, a shell above, and with a scallop shell and line of graduated spheres at the tail, foliate engraved rounded cocks and chiselled steels (one worn), figured moulded full stocks each carved in low relief with foliage around the barrel tang, cast and chased mounts comprising swept foliate side-plates each involving a grotesque mask, vacant foliate escutcheons, pommels each with unusual grotesque mask cap within borders of ropework and foliage, the spurs engraved with graduated beadwork, trigger-guards each with foliate finial and engraved with a bound floret on the bow, turned baluster ramrod-pipes, the rear one decorated en suite with the trigger-guard, and original iron-capped wooden-tipped ramrods each with iron worm, London proof marks and unidentified barrelsmith's mark, a crowned 'G' (2)
25.2 cm. barrels