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THE CONSECUTIVE PISTOL IS PICTURED AND DESCRIBED IN EARLY FIREARMS OF GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND
LOT 200
Rare, Important, and Iconic Engraved Collier & Co. Percussion Revolver
- Serial no. 106, 44 Bore cal., 6 1/4 inch solid rib bbl., brown/casehardened/
blue finish, walnut grips. The Collier revolving cylinder firearms are very rare
and historically significant firearms. Less than 250 total are estimated to have been manufactured across four variations, and they are rarely available. The design was actually first patented in the U.S. by Artemus Wheeler of Concord, Massachusetts, on June 10, 1818. Elisha Haydon Collier patented on an improvement of the design in the United Kingdom on November 24 of the
same year, and Cornelius Coolidge patented Collier’s improved design in France on August 5, 1819. “Collier & Co., Gunmakers” of London in 1818-1827 sold variations of the design in the form of pistols, rifles, carbines and shotguns. The 3rd Model Collier percussion revolvers and also an important predecessor to Samuel Colt’s Paterson revolvers. Colt is believed to have seen Collier revolvers on his 1830-31 voyage as a sailor on the Corvo and to have been influenced by the design. The Collier patents and testimony from Collier were part of the 1851 court case brought by Colt against the Massachusetts Arms Co. because Colt’s patent was considered an improvement on the Collier and Wheeler patents.
This revolver is featured in “The Enigma of Clay Bedford’s Collier Firearms Collection” by Ben Nicholson in the American Society of Arms Collectors bulletin. This revolver is also discussed in the earlier American Society of Arms Collectors article “Collier and His Revolvers” by Clay Bedford where he writes, “The earliest Third Model Colliers I have seen are the pair of original percussion pistols, Nos. 106 and 107, in my collection which a resigned
Collier & Co., 54 Strand, London, on the barrel and Collier & Co.
Patent, (without a number)
on the lock plate.” No.
107 is shown in figure 12 within the article and is pictured in “Early Firearms of Great Britain & Ireland”.
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