Gun

Provenance can count for a lot when it comes to gun collecting and two names with quite different connotations came up at Holts (25/20% buyer’s premium).

The name Boutet appears on many fine presentation guns.

At Bonhams in London this single-barrelled 28-bore made in 1877 for one of the sons of Prince Duleep Singh reached £20,000.

Boss over-and-under guns from the golden age of London gunmaking have long ranked among the most sought by game shots.

This 12-bore self-opening sidelock ejector by James Purdey & Sons sold for £14,000 at the Gavin Gardiner (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Pulborough on September 2.

Any museum or collector seeking a centrepiece for their display need look no further than the Gatling gun – a pivotal invention that makes its presence felt by its sheer size and bling.

December 10 marked a significant step in the history of specialist sporting and antique gun auction house Holts (25-20% buyer’s premium).

If proof were needed that firearms sales are simply conducted on a completely different scale in the US, one need look no further than the three-day sale at Rock Island Auctions (18.5% buyer’s premium) in Illinois on December 6-8.

Fine German sidelock ejectors do not feature often in the London salerooms but Gavin Gardiner’s 25% buyer’s premium) May 1 sale of sporting guns at Sotheby’s in London produced a pair that not only scored on quality but had a history to back it up.

This Chicago Firearms Co ‘The Protector’ palm pistol is estimated at $800-1200 in the Pook & Pook auction in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on April 13.

A rifle from the personal armoury of Tipu Sultan sold for £60,000 in Oxfordshire last week.

MADAM – Responding to your article in ATG No 2365 ('UK salerooms 'not aware' of new laws on deactivated firearms'), I felt compelled to write in.

The National Ballistics and Intelligence Service (NABIS) has warned of a rise in defectively deactivated firearms offered at auction since the law changed this summer.

Was this the gun that John James Audubon (1785-1851) used to create the world’s most expensive natural history book?

Trade associations have defended the current firearms laws in the UK amid accusations on a BBC Panorama programme of a ‘loophole’ in gun control.

On the day that the Bastille was stormed Louis XVI famously recorded “rien” (nothing) in his game book.

The classic English sporting gun is a sidelock, but for many the ‘round-action’ shotguns perfected by John Dickson of Edinburgh in the 1870s are the most elegant of all.