Fine Antique and Modern Firearms

Browsing through this comprehensive catalogue is a source of pleasure for the dedicated collector. Comprising over1,500 pieces, it enables us to take collectors and aficionados on a journey through the evolution of firearms.

While inventors were still experimenting with wheellocks at the dawn of the 16th century, the second half of the century saw the emergence of true masterpieces, such as a deluxe wheellock rifle from South Germany, lavishly adorned with bone inlays (lot 13). During the same period, state princes were arming their personal life guards with wheellock weapons that were almost equally elaborate. The Prince Elector of Saxony, for example, issued three different models of wheellock puffers to his trabant guard over the years (lots 38, 39, 40 and 41).

Almost one hundred years later, when the wheellock was superseded by the flintlock, the gun was naturally also used in the field and for hunting. Lot number 46 refers to an entire collection of flawless shotguns from the Royal Armoury maintained by George I of Hannover.

However, it was not just the northerners who appreciated beautiful hunting weapons. Hardly had the 18th century dawned when Frederick I, who crowned himself the first King of Prussia, commissioned Christian Haman to build him a lavishly embellished flintlock rifle (lot 53). There again, at the Austrian court more than a century later, the otherwise so frugal and dutiful Kaiser Franz Joseph I went deerstalking with an opulently decorated double rifle made by the renowned Prague gunmaker, Anton Vincent Lebeda (lot 62).

While, as time went by, a firearm only allowed hunters to fire one, or a few shots at best, some ingenious minds invented the metal cartridge, the revolver and, towards the end of the 19th century, multiple-shot, semi-automatic pistols, like the Bergmann-Schmeisser M 1894 (lot 460), the Schwarzlose Model Standard (lot 564) and the Mauser C 96. In our 80th Auction, we are offering collectors a chance to acquire the almost legendary, "early step-barrel cone hammer" pistol with the serial number 76 (lot 508); it is worth pointing out that the famous C 96 used by Kaiser Wilhelm II on the Katharinenholz shooting range in Potsdam bore the serial number 75.

In a logical process, following on the heels of the semi-automatic was the fully automatic handgun, such as the Stechkin APS, now available as a complete set in a carrying case (lot 1145).