Ratdog68
Member
So, yesterday I'm visiting a buddy of mine. He recently lost his mother, and in the process of sorting through things... finds an old relic. We took some digital pix of it, but I'm waiting on him to email 'em to me.
From what I was able to determine after giving a once over eyeballing, I'm suspecting it's an actual mid 19th century offering. Percussion, single shot pistol, probably .50 cal. Ramrod holder is present, but no ramrod. It's "in the white", but is either a very ornately patterned barrel, or may be Damascus steel? The furniture is rather ornate as well, the trigger guard needs to be silver soldered (I suspect), it appears to be made of silver, but lacks the tell tale "tarnish" so I'm suspecting another metal. The stock is finely checkered and has a silver shield inlaid into the back strap of the stock. It has a nice silver metal piece of furniture on the left side of the stock which is engraved with decorations as well as " Rich Hollis ". The top of the barrel has "LONDON" tooled into it and has two contrasting (perpendicular) bands across it where the barrel meets the lockwork. The trigger will not catch the sear as you cock it, but you can feel it trying to engage in three stages of cocking. The barrel wedge has a slot and when we were able to release the barrel from the stock, the wedge remains secured to the stock (nice feature). I keep thinking "Damascus", because the ornate pattern on the barrel continues all the way around the barrel, even where it will not be seen while mounted to the stock. There was a build up of some corrosion on the underside of the barrel. A little oil on a soft sock and some rubbing to clean "gunk" revealed a three digit serial number, the initials "RH", and two more marks (proof marks) that couldn't really be revealed in detail with the light cleaning we did on the gunk. Even the hammer on this is ornately done as a "fish". The lockwork screws are ornate as well... and appear to've been indexed (although a couple of the screws which've been turned over the years' of use/ownership weren't "indexed" when re-secured).
Some google searching netted us a similar looking pistol that was valued at between $800-$1200, which also had the ramrod missing, and the forward hoop to secure the ramrod was broken off (this one's intact). It was a .45 cal pistol. The description of this one indicated those same contrasting (perpendicular) bands on the barrel were gold and platinum. I'm wondering if "platinum" is the furniture metal on this one too? From what I was able to see with the limited lighting... the bore isn't in too bad of shape, not sure if it's smooth or rifled. I doesn't appear to be "loaded" though. LOL My initial instinct is to pull the lockwork out of it, clean/oil it, inspect it for what would need "repair"... pull the nipple, give it a thorough cleaning/oiling, "schmooie" up the nipple threads and oil the stock... and shoot it !!! But, if it is Damascus steel, and actually IS as old as I suspect it is... it'd need a good eyeballing by someone more qualified than me to make that call.
It looks very similar to this one...
From what I was able to determine after giving a once over eyeballing, I'm suspecting it's an actual mid 19th century offering. Percussion, single shot pistol, probably .50 cal. Ramrod holder is present, but no ramrod. It's "in the white", but is either a very ornately patterned barrel, or may be Damascus steel? The furniture is rather ornate as well, the trigger guard needs to be silver soldered (I suspect), it appears to be made of silver, but lacks the tell tale "tarnish" so I'm suspecting another metal. The stock is finely checkered and has a silver shield inlaid into the back strap of the stock. It has a nice silver metal piece of furniture on the left side of the stock which is engraved with decorations as well as " Rich Hollis ". The top of the barrel has "LONDON" tooled into it and has two contrasting (perpendicular) bands across it where the barrel meets the lockwork. The trigger will not catch the sear as you cock it, but you can feel it trying to engage in three stages of cocking. The barrel wedge has a slot and when we were able to release the barrel from the stock, the wedge remains secured to the stock (nice feature). I keep thinking "Damascus", because the ornate pattern on the barrel continues all the way around the barrel, even where it will not be seen while mounted to the stock. There was a build up of some corrosion on the underside of the barrel. A little oil on a soft sock and some rubbing to clean "gunk" revealed a three digit serial number, the initials "RH", and two more marks (proof marks) that couldn't really be revealed in detail with the light cleaning we did on the gunk. Even the hammer on this is ornately done as a "fish". The lockwork screws are ornate as well... and appear to've been indexed (although a couple of the screws which've been turned over the years' of use/ownership weren't "indexed" when re-secured).
Some google searching netted us a similar looking pistol that was valued at between $800-$1200, which also had the ramrod missing, and the forward hoop to secure the ramrod was broken off (this one's intact). It was a .45 cal pistol. The description of this one indicated those same contrasting (perpendicular) bands on the barrel were gold and platinum. I'm wondering if "platinum" is the furniture metal on this one too? From what I was able to see with the limited lighting... the bore isn't in too bad of shape, not sure if it's smooth or rifled. I doesn't appear to be "loaded" though. LOL My initial instinct is to pull the lockwork out of it, clean/oil it, inspect it for what would need "repair"... pull the nipple, give it a thorough cleaning/oiling, "schmooie" up the nipple threads and oil the stock... and shoot it !!! But, if it is Damascus steel, and actually IS as old as I suspect it is... it'd need a good eyeballing by someone more qualified than me to make that call.
It looks very similar to this one...
