An Exceptional Quality Flintlock Holster Pistol by North. 15 ½” overall, 9 ¼” swamped two-stage 16 bore barrel turned at the girdle, the breech signed ‘E. North’ in capitals along the border engraved top flat & chiselled with a scallop shell & flowering foliage finial, the rear of the breech engraved with acanthus, & struck with London proof marks & barrelsmith’s mark, almost certainly of Edward North, tang grooved for sighting & finely engraved with foliage, rounded lock with slender raised edge signed in capitals ‘E. North’ on gathered drapery, rounded cock & steel with edges en suite, the former with engraved safety-catch behind, the inside of the lockplate stamped ‘RE’, the springs with chiselled details. Figured full stock carved in relief with a scallop shell & foliage around the rear ramrod pipe, a scallop shell behind the tail of the lock & side-flat, and with a flower-head suspended on a garland around each side of the barrel tang, steel mounts finely chiselled in relief and comprising side-plate pierced with flowering foliage centred on a cartouche, vacant escutcheon en suite and surmounted by a scallop shell, pommel with engraved spurs and decorated with swept foliage incorporating a flower-head on both sides, and border engraved cap with a large flowerhead, trigger guard with scallop shell finial & engraved with a rocaille & foliage on the bow, turned ramrod pipes, and later horn tipped ramrod
Circa 1750-60.
Pistol of the highest quality with exceptional chiselled decoration, very minor old pitting to barrel, cock with old repair
Provenance Professor David Weaver Collection. Clay P. Beford Collection,No 28
Exhibited The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971, cat. no. 28
See Clay P. Bedford and Stephen V. Granscay, Early Firearms of Great Britain and Ireland from the Collection of Clay P. Bedford, exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971, pp. 38-40, no. 30 (illustrated)
Peter Hawkins, The Price Guide To Antique Guns & Pistols, 1973, p. 74
David S. Weaver and Brian Godwin, 'A Transformation in English Gunmaking 1670-1770', London Park Lane Arms Fair Guide, Spring 2010, p. 79, fig. 15
Edward 1 North was apprenticed to George Halfhide in 1722, and free of the London Gunmakers’ Company in 1729. He was elected Master in 1753 and 1758. He is recorded as ‘Gunmaker, Behind the Royal Exchange, Threadneedle St.’ and was a member and Armourer of the Honourable Artillery Company from 1733, and was a furbisher of arms to Bankers, John Martin & Co. and Martin Stevens & Blackwell between 1748 and 1760, the year before his death.