Pistols with snakes

[corrado26]

Due to the Corona crises there is enough time to spend it with my collection instead of making visits and I found a pair of pistols with since a long time unanswered questions.
The first question is where and/or for which country these pistols have been made, were they made in Italy (Brescia/Naples) or in rhe Osmanic Empire or perhaps in Russia? The second question is the meaning of the thumplates with the snakes. The pistols have a total lenght of 490 mm and the mounts are made from silvered brass.

[rickystl]

Hi Corrado

What an interesting and handsome pair of horse pistols.
A question: Can you make out the reading on the top of the barrel breeches ?
This might give us a clue, but they do look faint and difficult to read.

Meantime, some observations:

The metal butt cap style reminds me more of Italian pistols from the later 17th Century.
The checkering on the stocks looks to be of European quality, and well executed.
The trigger guard is fasten with screws versus simply nailed on as most Ottoman pistols.
The lock has that 1750ish French style with the neatly rolled edges on the lock plate and hammer. The frizzen has the vertical grooves popular with Ottoman pistols.
The barrel, with it's fluted breech, was especially popular with Italian made guns. Also note the barrel is pin-fastened to the stock versus the more common barrel bands used with Ottoman guns. A European feature.
Note the LARGE size of the thumb pieces relative to most European pistols. The Ottomans seemed to have a preference for larger thumb pieces for some reason. Also, the thumb pieces are also attached with screws versus nails. Ala European. The snakes are a mystery to me. But I seem to recall seeing this same snake on an Ottoman powder flask some many years ago.

So, my best guess at this moment, is that these pistols were assembled somewhere in Europe for export to the Ottoman market. Or possibly made for an Ottoman origin customer living in Europe.
One thing I've noticed in studying these Ottoman styled horse pistols is that the styling of the locks, barrels, stocks, and hardware can vary greatly. You can have a pistol that was built in 1850 with styling characteristics that span 100 years apart.

Let us know if you can make out any of the writing on the barrel flats. And thanks for posting. Most interesting pair.

Rick

[fernando]

Originally Posted by rickystl

... A question: Can you make out the reading on the top of the barrel breeches ?
This might give us a clue, but they do look faint and difficult to read...

Yes ... a vital detail indeed.

[corrado26]

Sorry but I have to disappoint you: It is absolutely impossible to find out the sense of these signs. I am really not certain whether these are letters or nothing else than signs of decoration.

[Fernando K]

he discoloration of the trigger guard and the end of the stick suggests that the base metal is bronze. In this case, is it silver?
Affectionately

[corrado26]

As I wrote before, it is silvered brass or bronze

[Fernando K]

1000 perdones....

[Philip]

The odd symbols on the top of the barrel which don't seem to conform to either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets, remind me of an attempt at an inscription or signature that I've seen before on some barrels on guns of Balkan origin. The ribs and channel on the breech portion of the barrel imitate a somewhat similar but far more skillfully executed effect by Brescian gunsmiths; again, the Balkans and other parts of the Ottoman empire was the source of many of these lackluster interpretations of the real thing.

Many of those Balkan knockoffs have misspelled and sloppily chiseled versions of the name Lazarino Cominazzo, the most well-known of a large Brescian family of barrel-makers whose careers spanned 3 generations Aside from misspelled names and poor finish, the copies lack the exquisite balance of Cominazzo work, arising from a robust breech and relatively thin walls at the muzzle, made possible by the exquisitely forged, high quality steel of which the tubes were made. In the Levant, guns with Italianate barrels were often generically termed "al-Lazari", no matter if the signature was genuine or not. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Philip

... Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

Oh ... i like that, Filipe .

[P14]

The Colbert family of France had a single snake on their coat of arms. Jean-Baptiste Colbert 1619-83. Could have been a gift maybe?

https://collections.royalarmouries.o...sort=relevance

[rickystl]

Ho Corado

Something I just noticed. Your original photos above, the 6th down from the top showing one of the metal butt caps. Is that a trace of blue color mixed in with the silver plating ? Or is that just due to the photography ?

Rick

[corrado26]

No, this is actually blue and I thing a trace of silver oxidation.

[rickystl]

OK. That makes sense. I was thinking that the silver might have been what they call black/blue niello work at one time. But there is no real trace of that.
Thanks.

Rick

[Forja Fontenla]

Beautiful pieces!
They have many things to be Balkan, from the Bosnian region, where such french type flintlock mechanism are most frequently seen.
Inscriptions pretending to be European are very common on pistols from the Balkan Peninsula.
The flintlock is possibly made in Italian or Spanish, built for the Ottoman market, its the same with the barrel

Have you disarmed it?

[alex8765]

Looks like Greek alphabet to me.