A Very Fine Pair Of Flintlock Silver-Mounted Over-and-Under Holster PistolsBy Joseph Heylin, Cornhill, London, London Silver Hallmarks For 1760, Maker's Mark JAWith two-stage barrels slightly flared towards the muzzles, the border engraved octagonal breeches finely decorated with rococo foliate scrollwork involving martial trophies, the upper flats signed within foliated ribbons, tangs each secured by two screws and engraved with foliage against a cross-hatched ground, border engraved flat locks each signed on a rococo and foliate ribbon on the rounded tail, cocks decorated en suite, external main- and steel-springs each chiselled with foliage, moulded figured rounded butts (minor old defects) each carved in relief with shells around barrel tang, mounts comprising trigger-guards each engraved with a martial trophy on the bow, heavy spurred pommels cast and chased with flowering foliage in relief against a finely punched ground, the spurs engraved with foliage and graduated beadwork, large vacant escutcheons each with a border of flowering foliage en suite, and original silver-tipped ramrods, one with iron worm (iron parts with some light scattered pitting), London proof marks and Heylin's barrelsmith's mark (2)23 cm. barrels Footnotes:ProvenanceRobert-Jean Charles (1904-1979), Paris, March 1938 for FF 5,000 (according to a handwritten note in one barrel)W. Keith Neal Collection, P255Christie's London, Fine Antique Firearms from the W. Keith Neal Collection, 25 October 2001, lot 240 ExhibitedThe Game Fair, Longleat House, 1962The Art of the Armourer, Victoria and Albert Museum, 19 April - 5 May 1963, cat. no. 248 The Game Fair, Shuttleworth Old Warden Park, 27-29 July 2001LiteratureW. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back, Great British Gunmaker 1740-1790, 1975, p. 109, pls. 381-384Joseph Heylin, gunmaker and stonebow maker, was made free of the London Gunmaker's Company by redemption in 1757, was elected Assistant in 1773, Upper Warden in 1776, and Master in 1777. He was contractor to the East India Company, 1773-1777, to the Hudson's Bay Company, 1775-1777, and to the African Merchants Company in 1760. Also on the livery of the Worshipful Company of Vintners, his career was interrupted by bankruptcy in 1779 and he died in 1801Noted for his brass-barrelled blunderbuss-pistols, he is also the maker of a pair of flintlock silver-mounted holster pistols with solid silver barrels and lock-plates formerly in the collection of Norman Dixon and sold in these Rooms 18 April 2012, lot 318 (£51,650 including premium). For more information see Norman Dixon, Georgian Pistols... 1971; passim'Joseph Heylin, A Georgian Gunmaker 1730-1801', The Journal of the Arms & Armour Society, Vol. XVII, No. 3 (March 2002), pp.155-189; and J.F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, Vol. II 1660-1830, 1963, p.203, pl.65For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
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![NO RESERVE Burroughs (Edgar Rice) The Chessmen of Mars, plates, 1923 § Grey (Zane) Tales of Fishes, plates, [1919] § London (](https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/ef2089c3-b942-41e9-9eda-ac7d00b61675/658b4ca9-d524-4bd7-bcde-ac8000a94940/468x382.jpg)
