![online Militaria dealer - Antique-Militaria [UK]](/antique-militaria.jpg)
Antique Militaria Home
Cart
Checkout
About us
Site map
Contact us
Customer commentsfirearms
I cover this area from mid-18th century to late-19th century, from flintlock to early cartridge guns. For me this is where hobby and profession meet, as I'm a black powder enthusiast (ex-fencer)! My particular interest is in American and British revolvers of the percussion era and, to a more general extent, in British and European service handguns from the 19th century. Good reference books include: 'English pistols and revolvers' by J N George; Howard Blackmore's book on English service firearms of the 18th & 19th century. Museums with important collections include: the Royal Armouries, Leeds; the Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London W1; Musee de l'Armee, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna; and various other museums in European capitals.
Here is a selection of militaria from this category:
|
Tap action, double-barrelled flintlock pistol - French
This is a direct copy of an English design, almost certainly made in France, the butt piquet work being typically French, and proved in Liege, with the early Liege proof marks, in use up to 1816 when they were changed to a letter punch within a circle. The French rarely copied English designs, so this is an interesting pistol in this respect.
|
|
Wheellock pistol - Dutch
This fine pistol has a 20-inch/50cm rifled barrel (approx .55 calibre). The lock is the final development of the genre with a set trigger (adjustment screw missing). The stock is marked 'R?P.III', likely to be the stockmaker/gunmaker. Wheellocks of this type would have been used in the 30 Years War and in the frontier fighting against the Turks.
|
|
Tap-action pocket pistol by Smith, London - British
This pistol (7 3/4 inches long) has Birmingham proof marks, which date it to no earlier than 1813, although it was retailed in London. It was designed to give a second shot as a close-quarter self-defence weapon for the rough-and-tumble England of the early 19th century. Perhaps Bill Sykes carried one of these!
|
|
Flintlock boxlock pocket pistol by Oakes, Horsham - British
This is an iron-mounted example with Birmingham proofs on the barrel, the type of weapon that people would have carried for self-protection in the rough and tumble years of late Regency Britain. The academic interest is the Horsham gunmaker, who probably retailed a fairly standard Birmingham product and had his name and town engraved on it.
|
|
Five-shot .41 calibre rimfire revolver, ivory-gripped - American
This black powder weapon was made by the US Arms Company (in business 1873-78, the middle of the cowboy period!), who had a factory in Brooklyn, and would have been carried by sheriffs, riverboat gamblers and assorted 'bad guys' as a back-up weapon if their heavier guns weren't to hand! It was probably made under Otis A Smith's patent.
|
