A Flintlock Holster Pistol by J. Cosens, 14 ¼” overall, 8 ½” swamped four-stage barrels with octagonal breach & moulded girdle, London Gunmakers proofs, engraved tang, signed ‘I. Cosens’. Rounded locks engraved with scrolling foliage, birds & issuant monster head on the tail, with double line borders, swan neck engraved cock, moulded figured rootwood full stocks with raised apron at the barrel tang. Iron mounts including pierced & chiselled interlaced serpentine side plate, spurred pommel engraved with foliage, baluster ramrod pipes, & original iron capped ramrod.
Circa 1670-90
A most interesting pistol, discovered under the floor of a house in Warwickshire, the barrel and trigger guard have suffered from surface rust but the lock, side plate & butt are in very good condition having been protected by their original blued finish.
John Cosens, said to have ‘leant ~ye arte [of gunmaking] in ye City of Winchester~’, was admitted to the Freedom of the Gunmakers~ Company on 14th August 1662. By 1664 he was in business and received payments from the Ordnance board for the manufacture and repair of matchlock and snaphaunce arms during the period 1666-80. In 1670 he took over Harman Barnes shop in the Strand from his widow and he became Gunmaker in Ordinary to Charles II before 1669. The Wardrobe Account for 1680 shows that he delivered three pairs of pistols and one gun for £29 and in the same year he supplied pistols and one gun (stocked with ash)| for £8 as part of the King’s presents for the Emperor of Morocco. The last reference to him is on 4th August 1698 when he was fined ten shillings for proving a birding barrel belonging to John May who was not entitled to have barrels proved.
See Neal and Back 1984, p. 139 and Blackmore 1999, pp. 58-9.