Item ref: 3920
Private collection, United Kingdom
These are good examples of the type of pistol carried for self protection and their slab-sided butts and rectangular section box-lock action and turn-off cannon barrels suggest a date for their manufacture of the late 18th or early 19th century. The barrels and actions are made of a high-nickel copper alloy popularly known as ‘paktong’, whose use became fashionable in the 18th century for the manufacture of many types of domestic and decorative metalwork. The left side of each action is engraved Waters, but no gunmaker of this name can be found listed as working in London or the provinces at the time these pistols were made.