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LOT 208
German Wheellock Sporting Rifle with Inlaid Stock and Extremely Rare Triangular Bore - NSN, 25 Bore cal., 29 inch octagon
bbl., bright finish, bone inlaid fruitwood stock. Dating to the late 17th century, this is a very scarce example of a wheellock rifle with a triangular shaped bore. A flintlock rifle by Walster of Saarbruck with a heart- shaped bore forms part of the collection of the Royal Collection Trust at Windsor, and another flintlock rifle by Lewis Barbar using an earlier German triangular bore barrel formed part of the famous W. Keith Neal Collection. See W. Keith Neal and D.H.L. Back’s “Great British Gunmakers 1540-1740” on p. 299, plates 118 a-e and Howard L. Blackmore’s “Royal Sporting Guns at Windsor” on pp. 47-48, plates 32-33. The swamped octagonal barrel has a bead front sight and a notch back sight with pierced base. A band of bead work is cut into the breech end. Plain flat lock with enclosed wheel with pieced cover, manual priming pan cover, and cock engraved with a monster. Fruitwood full-length stock inlaid with engraved bone and mother of pearl plaques, the decoration including dragons, grotesque masks, serpents, a lion mask, a hunter armed with a spear and a bow with his dog, a vignette of a cloaked archer with two dogs hunting a wild boar, and other classically inspired figures. The stock has an inlaid bone border, and the decorative plaques are interspersed with mother of pearl diamonds and engraved roundels. A shaped mother of pearl escutcheon engraved with a shield is opposite the tail of the lock. Finely engraved bone sliding patch box cover decorated with a classical warrior surrounded by scrollwork. Iron indented trigger guard shaped to the fingers and single trigger. Wooden ramrod with bone tip. CONDITION: Very good. The barrel and lock are bright with some scattered patches of surface discoloration, small corrosion pock marks, and some storage and handling marks and blemishes throughout. Stock is also very good with some minor repairs and replacements to the bone inlay. The back edge of the patch box is missing its bone covering, and the release spring is frozen. The bone buttplate has
been replaced. Lock not tested. Estimate: 14,000 - 22,500
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