A Very Rare English Flintlock Wender Holster Pistol by Turvy,
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16” overall, 8 3/4” turnover 25 bore barrels each engraved 'LONDON' along the top flat within an elongated loop, Early Birmingham proofs. The rear of each breech decorated with acanthus, border engraved pan plates, steels & breech plates, border engraved tang decorated with foliage, bevelled back action lock & cock the former signed ‘TURVY’ in capitals, figured fore stock and moulded butt, the latter carved with a scallop shell behind the barrel tang, border engraved bevelled steel side plate decorated with a trophy of arms, steel trigger guard engraved with a scallop shell motif on the bow, spurred silver pommel engraved with a martial trophy on both sides, & with grotesque mask butt cap centred on a border of scrolls & shells, vacant foliate silver escutcheon with scallop shell above, horn tipped ramrod.
Circa1735
Very good condition, retaining screw, top-jaw & screw replaced, the butt with minor old repairs, chipped above the tail of the lock, barrels may be slightly shortened. Wender pistols are very rare in English gun making.
William Turvey/Turvy, son of Edward, was admitted freeman of the Gunmakers' Company in 1711 & was Master in 1733. His widow, Sarah, continued his business after his death in 1741. The Turveys were among the best London gunmakers of the first half of the 18th century.
For a related pair of pistols by John Richards of London see 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, pp. 132-135, no. 141