A Silver Mounted Flintlock Officer’s Pistol by H.W. Mortimer.
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15” overall, 8 ¾” Tutenag sighted 22 bore barrel formed in two stages, swamped towards the muzzle and octagonal over the breech, the latter signed ‘H. W. Mortimer London Gunmaker To His Majesty’ within a delicately engraved frame, engraved with a band of beadwork and fitted with iron back-sight, engraved tang decorated with flowers, signed stepped bolted tutenag lock decorated with scrolls and a star burst. Walnut full stock, chequered grip, full silver mounts comprising solid side plate decorated with scrolls and a central flowerhead, trigger-guard with acorn finial and a large elaborate flower on the bow, spurred pommel engraved with border ornament en suite with the breech and with a small central flower, silver escutcheon engraved with the owner's coat-of-arms, a pair of ramrod-pipes, and silver tipped ramrod.
A very fine pistol in good condition.
London hall mark of Michael Barnett 1783
Provenance: Norm Flayderman, 1974, cat. 95. The Estate of Howard Lee Munson (1940-2019) Literature H. Lee Munson, The Mortimer Gunmakers 1753-1923, Rhode Island 1992, pp. 31-33. Bernard Dickens, "M.B." - The Gunmakers' Silversmith. A Question of Attribution, in The Journal of the Arms & Armour Society, vol. XVI, No. 2, March 1999, p. 102.
The grasshopper crest and coat-of-arms is that of the Gresham family. The former can still be seen on the former Royal Exchange founded in 1565 by Sir Thomas Gresham.