Any help on four old pistols.

[pitfighter]

Sniffing around in an antique market here in a central somewhat contested part of Europe.
Asked if they had anything other than the tourist stuff, after waiting forty minutes for the customers to leave was taken to an upstairs back-room. This stuff is not technically allowed here, his back room was full of stuff mainly "fascist" artifacts that are not allowed or encouraged to be on display, but there were some semi-interesting items.

I picked these four very heavily-handled and inspected items.
I know the two "pepperbox" are original Spanish antique copies of European design.
They are period knock-offs, sometimes called brevet copies of original designs.
He wants 500 a piece for those.

I am less sure about the dueling pistols, he wants 1K for the boxed set with accessories.
My "knee-jerk" thought is that they look like a 1960's kit someone put together and then allowed to go rusty and subsequently "restored" with a buffing wheel.

The trouble is 50 years can look like 200 in a humid-climate like the one here, coupled with 1000's of greasy inspecting fingers over the years.
I couldn't find a single makers mark on the dueling pistols, not a number even (suspicious but not overly.)
The screw heads look hand-made, though they are really messy, and could have been marked-up to look hand-made.
The wood accessories and parts look suitably old, but again 50 years in certain climates can make brass and wood look older than it is.

Any thoughts on value or what I'm looking at here?

The two "pepperbox" -
1. Top; is an "Eibar" marked four shot .32 rimfire with the coaxed turning firing pin.
2. Below; is a more traditional "Lefaucheux" pin-fire .32ish - some hand stamped serial numbers not much else.

[pitfighter]

And pictures of the Dueling pistols:

Tried to isolate the screw heads and smaller details, to see if any one has thoughts.
Why you'd make two beautiful pistols and then put what looks like a homemade engraving job on them is anyones guess.
Anyway, have at it and let me know thoughts.

I kinda like the dueling pistols, worst case scenario they'll good movie props.
They're just a LONG way out of my comfort zone as antiques and there are a few too many red flags.

I will make an offer on the two pepperbox, so they will likely be coming hime with me.








The accessories and box:




The brass lock looks modern as does the key.

The hinges and workmanship look modern.

[pitfighter]

These look about the same (may have answered my own question):

Looks like someone buffed off all the modern markings and hid it by buffing over all the metal to hide the nefarious parts, peasants!!!

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/989515800

Any thoughts - ?

[Spyder]

I'm no help at all, but curious to learn from others. That's some serious rifling.

[Spyder]

That gunbroker link sure looks the same at first glance!

[SVT-40]

The rifling on the engraved dueling pistols looks modern. As you thought they are probably Spanish made in the 60's.

[hermosabeach]

A friends dad is a collector and he picked up a set of dueling pistols in the 70s

They look awesome but sell for about $200.

He was disappointed when he wanted to sell them that they had not appreciated like his other items.


Long way of saying, if it's a cool memory- grab them. Vacation trinkets are fun


If it's an investment and you think you are getting a steal as they are worth 10 times more here.... I have no idea.

[2761377]

my understanding is that it was considered unchivalrous for dueling pistols to be rifled.

I've been wrong and before, and probably will be wrong again, lol

[pitfighter]

Long way of saying, if it's a cool memory- grab them. Vacation trinkets are fun

.

I'm working here, and have been here so long now, it feels like I live here, lol.
Getting fat on Pinxos.

But, I hear you and agree.

I have little space, or desire, for trinkets, but I might be able to use the reproduction dueling pistols as movie-props, so they may come back to the US if I can horse-trade and haggle them to within my per diem - if I have to break out my credit-card it's no deal.

[pitfighter]

The rifling on the engraved dueling pistols looks modern. As you thought they are probably Spanish made in the 60's.

Yes, after I posted the initial thread I found pictures on several auction sites of the exact same Spanish Ardesa reproductions, they seem quite expensive for reproductions and were also being sold as antique on at least one site.

The Ardesa replica Dueling Pistols were also used in the Bond movie Skyfall, which is fun - otherwise their value is all over the clock.

https://screenrant.com/james-bond-coolest-weapons-ranked/

Anyway, fun research project, completed. back to work, hah.

[ironhorse1]

Definitely modern hinges. Some of the engraving looks very poorly done, crude at best. Those screws sure have been messed with a lot.
That is not what you would see on a fine set of dueling pistols done by a master engraver.
The rifling does not appear to be of the period but what do I know? Those have so much wear present. Just how often were they used and carried?
Pass on those big time!

irh

[BrokerB]

Love those quad barrel things.

[The Gleam]

Old Spanish guns are often simply deemed just that, without much widespread collector reverence.

They are most always copies of American guns of their day, and the quality is often subpar compared to similar guns from America and Germany at the same point in time.

If you laid those replica dueling pistols next to an original set of that style, you would more easily see the huge difference in craftsmanship (that engraving is an abomination.)

Exception would be modern guns from Star, which are largely unappreciated due to stigma placed on them by American gun stores in the 1970s and 1980s that lingers to this day.


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[pitfighter]

Old Spanish guns are often simply deemed just that, without much widespread collector reverence.

They are most always copies of American guns of their day, and the quality is often subpar compared to similar guns from America and Germany at the same point in time.

If you laid those replica dueling pistols next to an original set of that style, you would more easily see the huge difference in craftsmanship (that engraving is an abomination.)

Exception would be modern guns from Star, which are largely unappreciated due to stigma placed on them by American gun stores in the 1970s and 1980s that lingers to this day.


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Yes, indeed.

I am writing this from a province very close to Eibar - which was a heavy metal working center a century or so ago.
The cottage industry for "brevet" firearms (A term I kindly used in my original post) was enormous. They're basically "knock offs" of varying degrees of quality, lol.

https://gunsmagazine.com/guns/spanish-copies-of-sw-revolvers/

The same thing went on in Liege, Belgium and to a certain degree in Mexico at the beginning of the last century.
I had a Belgian Adams (English) revolver that was beautiful and I still own a Mexican Colt Dragoon (American) that is really, of very good quality.

My Belgian copy of an Adams .36.


My Mexican copy of a Colt First Model Dragoon .44



The two dueling pistols are not from Eibar, they are just 1970's replica pistols, made in Spain as many were in the 60's and 70's, they're made quite nicely for their time, they have been artificially or naturally aged or a combination of the both to look old.
The engraving is OK where it was done by the factory, hand done (and amateurish) where it has covered up the proof marks he ground off.
The heavy proofs and makers marks on the left side of the barrel have been ground off, and this in my opinion caused the counterfeiter to grind the whole pistol to age them appropriately to match.

There's not much more to say on these.
But it was a fun back alley shop.
He had several dozen other old guns, but these were the best.
He did have a lot of pin fire ammunition which I liked, but that stuff can't be brought home, so it was just interesting to look at.

He also had a lot of Azure Brigade, Wallonia insignia, and Condor Legion badges, patches and belt buckles; ALL fake and reproduction, aged to look old.
These were the WWII German units and pro-Nazi units of Spanish and Belgian soldiers. The Condor Legion were the Germans who bombed Republican targets for the Fascist forces under Franco.
I did visit Guernica which was very moving, still, all these years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condor_Legion

The town that was surprise fire bombed by Condor Legion planes, that had a Picasso painting/mural commissioned which was intended to bring world awareness to the surprise attack.

Basically the painting that put Picasso on the map.


Interesting history here.