AMERICAN FLINTLOCK PISTOL BY W.KETLAND & CO., CA.1810
$0.00
Out of stock
This flintlock pistol has a 8 inch brass barrel marked London at the top. Caliber is about 15 mm. Barrel has no proof marks, ostensibly because the Ketlands didn't want to pay for the private Birmingham proof house to fire it, since it was going aboard one of their ships to America. Lock is marked W.KETLAND & CO. Stock is marked with the stock-makers initials T*C, behind the counter plate. Stock forend is missing a piece of wood. Lock cocks, but but the main spring is weak.
Inexpensive pistols like these were sold by the Ketlands in the American market for more than 30 years, spanning the end of the 18th and the beginning of 19th centuries. This one was purchased in a Rhode Island estate sale. Most of Ketland-marked guns were made to be imported into the United States. There is much misinformation about the Ketland family, historically sedimented in the antique weapons collectors literature. Recent research on the Keltand family has set the record straight-er. Refer to this excellent article by Joseph Puleo on Ketland guns in America - http://www.researchpress.co.uk/rppublishing/rplibrary/rpl008-ketland-guns-in-america.pdf
