Gun

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.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Germany’s most expensive painting sold at auction, an unusual early firearm and a fin de siècle snake charmer are among the highlights featured here from recent auctions in Munich, Berlin and Cologne.

A trio of shotgun sales in the spotlight.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Cased pairs of pistols remain a particular favourite with collectors, being relatively compact and often in excellent condition after centuries cocooned in their brass-bound mahogany boxes.

Sporting guns are a little different from other areas of the arms and armour market in that many that are well over 100 years old are still in use today.