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A NEW BOOK ON ANTIQUE GUNS

A book for collectors and shooters covering the large number of military style carbines, still in existence, which carry private proof marks from London or Birmingham and were not issued by the Board of Ordnance. These carbines were made for private sale to volunteers, officers, police, prison service, The East India Company,  overseas military and many others.

The book covers the political and economic conditions under which such carbines were made together with a categorisation of the carbines into groups based on the style and operation. The main and most important part of the book, however, is a photo gallery with colour illustrations of carbines from 1750 to 1900.

The photo gallery has been prepared, not with the well known photos from The Tower, Royal Armouries or The National Army Museum. Rather I have searched out the carbines that you will find at Arms Fairs, Auctions, Dealer Catalogues & Private Collections. These are mostly not Museum Quality (although some are exceptional quality) but the style and condition of carbines that you will come across in the real world.

The book is A4 size (21cm x 29.7cm), soft cover with 160 pages having full colour illustrations.

Final content of the book includes a photo gallery with 85 different carbines, including several rare types, such as flintlock breech loading carbines on the Crespi and Sartoris principles. Also, a rare muzzle loading spear carbine by Gully and rifled flintlock carbines by Nock and Baker as well as smoothbore flintlock carbines of Eliott and Heavy Dragoon patterns. There are seven non Ordnance Paget carbines including rare musket bore variants from Mexico and New Zealand.

Also included are many percussion carbines together with capping breech loading carbines by Calisher & Terry and Westley Richards and patented CBL actions by Hughes, Prince, Green Bros and Mont Storm. As well as Snider and Martini Henry carbines there are variant patterns by Alexander Henry, Swinburn and Westley Richards. Finally to takes us to 1900 a Lee Enfield carbine by the LSA Co.