A Very Rare Pair of Officers Flintlock 1738 Land Pattern Pistols in their original holsters.
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19” overall, 12” round carbine bore barrels with London Gunmakers Proofs and Foreigners mark. Banana shaped rounded lock plates singed ‘Willmore’, swan necked cocks, bridled pans, feather spring with trefoil finials. Walnut full stocks with regulation style mounts including engraved sporting gun side plates, and oval escutcheons, original brass tipped wooden rammers, with their very rare original blackjack style leather holsters.
In good sleepy uncleaned condition, One pistol with sliver of wood missing under back of lock, barrels and locks with very slight pitting, the other cracked at the wrist. Dark, uncleaned, untouched condition. One holster missing end-plug, the other with two small splits at top.
James Willmore was a maker of firearms in London from 1715 to 1775. He was also one of the early makers of rifled barrels in England. Willmore was not a freeman of the Gunmakers Company and his premises in Leicester Fields, London, were frequently searched for unproved firearms. The designation "F" (for foreigner) was a stamp of the Gunmakers Company of London which was struck on any barrel proved by them but which had been made by someone other than a member of the Company.
According to Blackmore Willmore was appointed, by royal warrant, Gunmaker-in-Ordinary to the King in 1740, with a grant of lodgings in Whitehall. The designation Whitehall, in 1740, would have referred to an area of London in which the buildings of the Palace stood. As a gunmaker-in-Ordinary to the King (in this case George Il), James Willmore was either on the establishment or a member of the Royal Household. He drew an annual retainer as well as being able to charge for work done.
See, James Willmore of London by Gary Kraidman, Pages 92-99Arms Collecting Vol.14 No 3 ,Royal Sporting Guns by Blackmore And Early Fire Arms from Clay Bedford Collection pages 59-60. And ‘The Swords and the Sorrows’, the Battle of Culloden Catalogue 1996, p.71, Nos.5.21 and p.86, No.9.8, for this type of pistol and holster, where it makes special mention of the rarity of these holster