A Very Rare Cased John Adams 1866 Double Action Revolver. 12 ½” overall, 6” octagonal, sighted, rifled barrel, top strap signed ‘Adams Patent Small Arms Company 391 Strand London’, London proof marks. Cylinder with swept nipple shields, frame engraved ‘Adams Patent Improved No. 40’ along the right side, plain trigger guard & ovoidal butt cap, rammer with press stud & engaging with wedge clip, chequered figured rounded butt. In its original lined & fitted oak case with accessories including G. & J.W. Hawksley powder flask, copper alloy ‘Adams London’ 54 bore bullet mould, oil bottle, cleaning rod, nipple key & cap tin, the interior of the lid with ‘John Adams 391 Strand’ trade label, the exterior with circular vacant escutcheon.
No 40 Circa 1866
Revolver in good condition, recoloured overall apart from the hammer & blued trigger, ram rod wedge clip a replacement, spring on flask broken, mechanism very good.
This revolver incorporates John Adams’ British Patent No. 1758 of 12 July 1861 and No. 1959 of 28 July 1866. It appears to be only the fourth example recorded.
Taylerson records that ‘Adams’s new pistol was designed for optimal use with a cylinder for “cartridges made on the Lefaucheux principle”, or with a percussion cylinder substituted [as in this case]; specimen arms are not known today’. See Blair 1968, p. 138, no. 645; and Chamberlain & Taylerson 1976, pp. 98-99, pl. 22.