


A Very Rare Cased 54-Bore Rifled Target Pistol With Left-Hand LockBy James Purdey, 314½ Oxford Street, London, No. 1784 For 1829
Sold for £17,562.50 inc. premium
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A Very Rare Cased 54-Bore Rifled Target Pistol With Left-Hand Lock
By James Purdey, 314½ Oxford Street, London, No. 1784 For 1829
By James Purdey, 314½ Oxford Street, London, No. 1784 For 1829
24.4 cm. barrel
Footnotes
Provenance
W. Keith Neal Collection
Christie's London, Fine Antique Firearms from the W. Keith Neal Collection, 25 October 2001, lot 164
Literature
W. Keith Neal & D.H.L. Back, British Gunmakers Their Trade Cards, Cases and Equipment 1760-1860, 1980, p.123, pl. 453
L. Patrick Unsworth, The Early Purdeys,1996, pp. 64 and 131
Originally sold to Falconer Atlee Esq. of Wandsworth on 28 September 1829 as a 'best finished Pistol with Mahogany case and apparatus' for £15 plus part exchange: the case and accessories £3.13.16d.
This pistol has the distinction of being the only single-barrelled Purdey pistol recorded with a left-hand lock. It is also the earliest recorded instance of a Purdey pistol with a blackened stock. Whatever the purpose of its unusual design, it was returned to Purdey, who within four months of the original sale, sold it to his son-in-law, Joseph Lang