A Fine Scottish Heart Butt Flintlock Pistol by James MacKenzie of Brechin. 10 ½” overall, 6 3/8” multi stage round barrel with octagonal muzzle. The lock of Highland form with swan necked cock, iron stock with incised line decoration, heart shaped butt, two small ramrod pipes, ball trigger & pricker, long belt hook, iron rammer.
Circa 1730.
In very good crisp condition
James Mackenzie of Brechin, 1728-38, was a maltster, brewer and gun maker.
Sold Sotheby’s December 2002
See “The Scottish Pistol Its History, Manufacture & Design” by M. Kelvin pages 114-118 and “The Heart Butt Pistols of East Scotland”, Scottish Art Review. For a related pistol in the Royal Museum of Scotland described as 'unsigned', but with the characteristics associated with James MacKenzie of Brechin, c.1730 see Claude Blair and Robert Woosnam-Savage, Scottish Firearms, 1995, pp. 29-29, fig. 44.