British Coastguard/Customs Pistol

[Dave Wallis]

I was lucky enough to find this percussion pistol at a recent UK Car boot sale (swap meet?).
I believe it to be a British Coastguard type pistol, but there are a few similar weapons, so not 100% sure. It has just under a 3/4" smooth bore.
There are very faint markings on the lockplate, below the middle pin, which do not show up on a photo, which look to be 'O W E', so I'm assuming part of the word 'TOWER' There are 3 Crown above TC stamps in the stock; these I take it are Inspectors marks?
Anyone here that can help out? Many thanks.

 

[Desperate Lee]

Very nice Dave. Good find.

 

[cositrike]

You’d do much better, putting this on the British militaria forums. Not saying that people here won’t know, but there is an absolute wealth of knowledge regarding British weapons on the BMF

 

[Dave Wallis]

You’d do much better, putting this on the British militaria forums. Not saying that people here won’t know, but there is an absolute wealth of knowledge regarding British weapons on the BMF

I've actually found that I get more informative replies on this forum, than on UK ones, but I shall have a go with the forum you suggest, cheers.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Dave,
I believe you do have a Lovell designed 1842 Naval or Coast Guard pistol, however, it does not appear to have holes for a belt hook. That makes me think it could have been issued to the Transport Corps, hence the crown and TC? I am just guessing but these pistols were issued to the land transport corps during the Crimean War.

dave

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I had an old pistol with the exact same crown stamps and the folks at British Militaria pronounced my pistol as an artificially aged modern Indian counterfeit. A friend ran a carbon 14 on a sliver of wood under the barrel and it came up circa 1845 plus or minus 10 years. The lock threads turned out to be identical to those used in England and another friend found a proper inspector mark. I like the folks over there, but sometimes they are too full of themselves. And heaven help you if you question what some of them say.

 

[Dave Wallis]

I had an old pistol with the exact same crown stamps and the folks at British Militaria pronounced my pistol as an artificially aged modern Indian counterfeit. A friend ran a carbon 14 on a sliver of wood under the barrel and it came up circa 1845 plus or minus 10 years. The lock threads turned out to be identical to those used in England and another friend found a proper inspector mark. I like the folks over there, but sometimes they are too full of themselves. And heaven help you if you question what some of them say.

You get a 'clique' of members, who'll all agree with each other and are never wrong; unfortunately, I usually find this is prevalent on UK based forums