A Very Fine Pair of Silver Mounted Flintlock Pocket Pistols by Heylin. 9 ½” overall 3 5/8” three stage turn off 50 bore cannon barrels, numbered ‘1’ & ‘2’ respectively & stamped below at the breeches with London proofs & Heylin’s own mark, border engraved box lock actions profusely decorated with stands of arms sprays of foliage, signed on foliate scrolls to the right, ‘HEYLIN CORNHILL’ & ‘LONDON’ to the left, tangs engraved with scrolling foliage, sliding trigger guard safety catch. Border engraved swelling walnut butts with cast & chased silver mounts comprising signed escutcheons, engraved with a crest of a German King’s crown (we have not been able to identify which king) over ‘P Cp C’, & butt masks with a rampant lion on a fortress with ‘IK’ hallmark for Joseph Keays. Presented on a well made display stand.
Circa 1770. No hallmark dating letter.
This is a very fine pair of pistols manufactured by one of the most talented London gunmakers in the late 18th century. Pistols in very good condition, crisp & unrubbed. One cock appears to have an old contemporary repair.
Joseph Heylin, Gunmaker, at the Cross Guns, Cornhill, 1757-1801. Made free of Gunmakers Co., by redemption, proof piece & mark, 1757. Elected Assistant, 1773; Master in 1777. Gunmaker and stone crossbow maker, 48 Cornhill, 1757-79; 100 Bishopsgate Within, 1780-1; Aldersgate Street 1796. Contractor to East India Co., 1773-7; Hudson Bay Co., 1775-7; African Merchants Co., 1760. Died 1801.
See ‘Georgian Pistols’ by Norman Dixon pages 44-58 & ‘A Georgian Gunmaker 1730-1801', The Journal of the Arms & Armour Society, Vol. XVII, No. 3 March 2002. For the silver mark see The Journal of the Arms & Armour Society Vol xxv No3 March 2026 .