Here you will find some of the finest antique firearms ever made. These little pistols, with screw-off barrels and drop-down triggers, pack a much bigger punch than their size would suggest. The barrel was screwed off, powder placed in the breach and an over-sized ball was placed on top of the charge before using a barrel wrench to refit the barrel. This resulted in the ball being compressed as it was forced down the barrel under considerable pressure; a very effective close-quarter defence weapon.
Often these pistols would be carried loaded at half-cock in a travelling case or, more often, in a pocket or ladies’ muff (hence their British name – muff pistols). The pistol could be drawn quickly with the trigger dropping down as the hammer was pulled back to full-cock.
British-made pocket pistols were generally the cheap-end of the market, often made in Birmingham workshops, stamped with a well-known London maker’s name, to be sold in one of the big-name London maker’s shops. The big-name London makers concentrated on full-size duelling pistols with a high profit margins.
The pistols you see here, made by gunmakers to the French monarchy and Napoleon, are not the cheap-end of the market, quite the contrary, they are bespoke pieces, often commissioned for high-ranking officers, bureaucrats, or family members of Napoleon. All these pistols are fine examples of the gunmakers craft, with some carrying innovative and intricate features like concealed frizzen springs and safety mechanism to lock the hammer at half-cock and secure the frizzen in the down position.
When retracted, the drop-down triggers are near-impossible to detect, as good as anything made on a modern CNC machine.
The engraving on these presentation pieces is a work of art, many carrying the distinctive work of Master Engraver and Medallist, Fleury Montagny, who often used the pattern books of Ignace Joseph Chevalier de Claussin (1766-1844), a French etcher and printmaker who copied the works of Dutch Masters, Paulus Potter (1625-1654), Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem (1620-1683) and Marcus de Bey (1638-1688), Italian etcher Stefano Della Bella (1610-1654) and others.
The skill and artistry were carried through to the stocks, all are either intricately chequered or, in the case of Super Deluxe commissioned pieces, adorned with fish-scale patterns and very fine carving about the back and pommel. One very special piece has the ebony stock inlaid with mythical creatures made from 24 carat gold.
