A Very Fine & Rare 17th Century Flintlock Holster Pistol with Silver Mounts by T. Green of London. 16 ½” overall, 9” two stage barrel engraved with foliage in front of the turned girdle, border engraved breech signed ‘GREEN’ in capitals along the top of a raised panel with chiselled trefoil terminal & decorated with foliate scrolls, a chiselled band of acanthus at the rear, struck with London proof marks & barrel smith’s mark of Thomas ‘1’ Green, tang, border engraved rounded lock signed ‘T.GREEN FECIT’ in capitals & finely decorated with scrolling foliage, the foliage on the tail with male profile head terminal wearing a winged cap, rounded cock and steel decorated en suite. Figured moulded Walnut rootwood full stock inlaid with silver wire scrollwork on either side of the characteristic swelling at the rear ramrod pipe & along the back of the butt, the latter highlighted with two engraved silver flower heads & silver dots, Silver cast & chased mounts comprising pierced foliate scroll sideplate with monster head terminal, vacant foliate escutcheon surmounted by a demi-lion mask, pommel with engraved spurs & decorated with a design of symmetrical foliage on both sides within double lined borders & a satyr mask cap centred on a border of acanthus, Hall Marked Silver trigger guard with pierced foliate finial & decorated with a hound’s head & foliage on the border engraved bow, baluster ramrod pipes, later silver capped wooden ramrod.
Britannia Silver Hall Mark for 1699, this pistol is believed to be the earliest hallmarked English Pistol. Silversmith’s mark of William Bull
Very fine pistol, in very good condition for age. some old wear & pitting, top of cock comb missing, minor old splits to stock, barrel shortened in its early working life from about 10 1/2" to 9".
Provenance Ex Clay P. Bedford Collection, & Professor David S. Weaver Collection
Exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971, cat. no. 13
Literature Clay P. Bedford and Stephen V. Grancsay, Early Firearms of Great Britain and Ireland from the Collection of Clay P. Bedford, exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971, p. 22, no. 13 (illustrated)
Thomas Green was apprenticed to Edward Nicholson in 1686 and was free of the London Gunmakers’ Company in 1693. He was elected Master of the Company in 1720 and is recorded ‘att ye Fowler’ Minories between 1697 and 1714. He was gunmaker to Ordnance from 1697 to 1715, the Royal Africa Company in 1721 and was Viewer and Proof Master to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1712. He died in 1728.
William Bull, trumpeter was admitted to the Royal Household in 1666. He was appointed 'Trumpeter Extraordinary' to Charles II in 1666 and 'Trumpeter in Ordinary' to that monarch in 1677 & to James II in 1685. In 1689 he was one of 16 trumpeters to William & Mary. He resigned in 1700
Trumpet maker Haberdasher and Silversmith advertises "All Sorts of Trumpetts [sic] and Kettle Drums ffrench [sic] Hornes [sic], Speaking Trumpetts, Hearing Hornes for Deafe [sic] people & all sorts of powder flasks and allso [sic] Wind Gunes [Guns] made and minded by William Bull Trumpett maker to his Majestie Who liveth att [sic] the Signe [sic] of the Trumpett and Horne in Castal Street Neare [sic] the Muyse [sic]."