
An Incredibly Rare Brass Mounted Flintlock Tinderlighter by John Lawrence Kolbe or his brother Johann Gottfried Kolbe (Coleby) London. 12 ½” overall, off holster pistol form, brass three stage barrel, belled at the muzzle, engraved with foliage at the breech and signed ‘KOLBE’ along the top flat, the upper half of the barrel hinged on the left side and opened by backward pressure on the trigger to reveal a hinged brass tube holding the automatically lit taper, engraved brass tang, steel lock signed ‘KOLBE LONDON’ below the brass pan. Figured walnut full stock carved in relief with raised mouldings around the tang & lock, engraved brass mounts comprising pierced foliate side plate, vacant escutcheon, long eared butt cap with grotesque mask, with trap to hold candle, engraved trigger guard, inlet with sprung stand that flicks out on activation, engraved brass fore-end cap.
Circa 1745.
In very good working condition
As far as I am aware this is only the second English tinderlighter of this type known. A similar Kolbe tinderlighter formerly in the Clay P. Bedford Collection, exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1971 (cat. no. 194) and subsequently sold at Christies Fine Antique Firearms from the W. Keith Neal Collection on 25th October 2001 for £7638.
This tinderlighter was bought by the previous owner from the estate sale of Sir Thomas Moore/Muir in Ayrshire in the 1980s.