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Scarce Silver Mounted Pair of Joseph Heylin Flintlock Officer’s Pistols with Hallmarks for 1772 -A) Heylin Officer’s Pistol - NSN, 65 cal., 9 1/8 inch part octagon bbl., bright/silver finish, walnut stock. This pair was previously in the collection of Warren Moore and his book “Weapons of the American Revolution and Accoutrements” features other silver mounted pistols from various English makers in the period, including a fairly similar pair owned by George Washington shown on page 13. Moore noted that Joseph Heylin supplied many high end officer’s pistols during the 1760s and 1770s but eventually went bankrupt in 1779 and died in 1801. Several pairs of pistols by Heylin can also be viewed in Norman Dixon’s “Georgian Pistols: The Art and Craft of the Flintlock Pistol, 1715-1840.” Gentlemen in the colonies such as Washington prior to the American Revolution considered themselves British and styled themselves after their counterparts in England, including purchasing fine English pistols as their sidearms for military service. The pistols have multi-stage brass barrels with girdled transition points, “CORNHILL-LONDON” marked on top of the breech sections, Ordnance private proofs, and sight grooves that extend onto the engraved iron tangs. The locks are marked “HEYLIN: and have sliding half-cock safeties, scroll and martial engraving, and small rollers on the frizzens. The furniture is silver and has a combination of case and engraved designs mainly consisting of floral patterns along with classical martial motifs on the pierced side plates. The hallmarks on the trigger guard tangs are from London in 1772 and the silversmith marks are “I-K.” The ornate wrist escutcheons are inscribed with the initials “JC.”The stocks have nicely shaped tear drop flats and shell carving at the upper tangs.
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