A Very Fine & Rare Cased Pair of Silver Mounted Flintlock ‘Irish’ Duelling Pistols by Wogdon. 17 ½” overall, 12” 37 bore round barrels, each signed ‘Wogdon London’ along the sighting flat at the breech & with a transverse band of beadwork at the rear, silver spider fore sights, two folding leaf rear sights & gold lined touch holes, with London Proofs and ‘RW’ stamp on the left hand side of the barrel. Tangs finely engraved with foliage, each with a band of beadwork & incorporating the back sight, flat bevelled bolted stepped detented locks signed ‘ Wogdon’. Flat swan necked cocks & steels, narrow safety bolts, figured full stocks with rounded flat sided butts, cast & chased mounts comprising pierced foliate side plates each incorporating a scallop shell on a baldaquin, unique butt caps with the standing figure of Britannia holding a spear, oval escutcheons surmounted with a scallop shell, border engraved trigger guards each with scallop shell finial & decorated with a flower head on the bow. Turned silver ramrod pipes, set triggers & original silver tipped ramrods, both with iron worm. In their Chippendale caddy topped oak case with some accessories including a black leather bottle shaped powder flask, bullet mould. oil bottle, turn screw & loading rod. The exterior of the lid with Chippendale brass carrying handle.
Hall marked for 1774, Silver mounts by John King
Best quality pistols in very good condition. Possibly the earliest set of Wogdon’s known.
Robert Wogdon was apprenticed to Edward Newton of Grantham, Lincolnshire in 1748. He is recorded as 'Gunmaker, at Mr. Maw's Haberdasher, Cockspur St., Charing Cross' in 1764. He carried on his business in Haymarket from 1774 until his retirement in 1802. From 1795 he was in partnership with John Barton who carried on the business following Wogdon's retirement.
Pistols illustrated in John O'Sullivan & De Witt Bailey, ‘Robert Wogdon & Barton, John Barton, London Gunmakers 1764-1819’, 2019, page 132