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LOT 3213
Extremely Important, Only Known, Documented U.S. Navy Trials
Artemus Wheeler Flintlock Revolving Rifle in Private Hands - NSN, 50 cal., 32 5/8 inch round bbl., bright finish, walnut stock. This incredibly
rare revolving rifle is one of four Captain Artemus Wheeler revolving long guns (two long single barreled guns and two pepperbox
style carbines) manufactured and purchased by the U.S. Navy for trials in 1821. Wheeler offered the guns to the Navy at
the cost of $100 each, a hefty price for the period. Only
this rifle remains outside a museum. The other three reside in the Smithsonian and Virginia Military Institute museum collections. The Smithsonian’s single barrel example is noted as smoothbore musket. As such, this rifle is the only example
of a very desirable and historically significant revolving firearm still available for advanced private collections, arguably one
of the most desirable and historic given the Wheeler patent firearms’ influence on the subsequent development of American
revolving arms, including those of Samuel Colt. It is pictured on the cover of the April 1978 issue of “The Gun Report” and discussed in
the article “Captain Artemus Wheeler, Gunsmith Concord, Massachusetts, 1781-1845” by Willard C. Cousins and pictured on page 18. On page 21, he notes that the rifle was formerly in the Colonel B.R. Lewis Collection and was described in his article “Captain Wheeler’s Revolving Guns” in the April 1953 issue of “The American Rifleman.” There was also a second part of Cousins’ article in the May issue, a third part in the June issue, and a conclusion in
the July issue. These guns are also discussed in “Collier and His Revolvers” by Clay P. Bedford in the American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin
24 which shows the Smithsonian examples. The rifle was featured in the December 2018 issue of the “U.S. Martial Arms Collector and
Springfield Research Newsletter,” and collector correspondence related to the gun is included.
These firearms are based on designs by Captain Artemus Wheeler of Concord, Massachusetts. They were subsequently improved and patented
in Europe. Wheeler first patented the design in the U.S. on June 10, 1818. Elisha Haydon Collier, a resident of Boston, Massachusetts, received a patent on an improvement of the design on November 24, 1818, in England, and Cornelius Coolidge, also of Boston, patented an improved design in France on August 5, 1819. Collier’s name soon became the one associated with the design, but the Collier revolving system is rightly considered by the Royal Armouries and serious collectors and arms historians today to truly be the invention of Captain Wheeler. Samuel Colt is believed to have seen Collier’s revolvers on his 1830-31 voyage to England and India as a sailor on the Corvo and to have been influenced by the design; indeed, the Collier patents and testimony from Collier were part of the 1851 court case brought by Colt against the Massachusetts Arms Co. due to Colt’s patent being considered an improvement on the Collier and Wheeler patents.
The rifle features a seven-shot cylinder with built in flashpans that automatically refill from the primer magazine as the cylinder is rotated.
The rifled barrel has a blade front sight and a long sighting flat. The gun is marked with “3” inside the lock mortise, indicating this was the third of the Wheeler revolvers made. The two pepperbox carbine versions are numbered “1” and “2” in the same location. The cock has some light engraving. Otherwise, the rifle is unmarked. It has a walnut buttstock with a checkered wrist, oval cheekpiece, and iron buttplate with stepped finial. An iron ramrod with a flared tip is fitted below the barrel.