A Pair of Flintlock Silver Mounted Pistols by Hadley. 14” overall, 8” two-stage brass barrels 18 bore each slightly swamped towards the muzzle with turned girdle, octagonal breeches each signed ‘Hadley London’ in capitals along the top flat & engraved with foliate rocailles fore & aft, border engraved tangs decorated with foliage. Tower private proof marks. Border engraved flat bevelled locks each signed ‘Hadley’ in capitals on a foliate rococo scroll & decorated en suite on the tail, engraved cocks & steels. Figured walnut full stocks each carved with a shell behind the barrel tang, rounded butts with swelling pommels, silver mounts comprising pierced & engraved ribbon side plates, vacant escutcheons cast & chased with a flower above & drapery below, grotesque mask caps, trigger guards each with shell & flower finial engraved with a flower head in a diamond shaped panel on the bow, turned ramrod pipes, & original horn tipped ramrods, one with iron worm.
Silver Hallmarks For 1777, maker's mark of Charles Freeth
Handsome pistols in fine condition, some minor bruising to stocks.
The maker is almost certainly Thomas Hadley, gunmaker Birmingham, who was apprenticed to Thomas Hudson in 1750. On the death of his father, also Thomas, in 1766 he continued the business in Birmingham and is recorded as having died in 1789.
Many Birmingham gunmakers signed their firearms 'London'