Cool Pistols in Old Movies

[grant]

I was watching the end of the 1934 version of the "Scarlet Pimpernel" last night and a lot pistols were being waved around. One particularly that I liked was a double barrel flintlock pistol that the Pimpernel(played by Leslie Howard) had when he was cornered at the end. Does anybody make a reproduction of a double barrel flintlock?

 

[hawkeye1755]

Grant, here is a double barrel and quadruple barrel pistol.

:hatsoff:

 

[grant]

:bow: Wow! Great pictures! I like that quad. I guess you rotated the barrel 180 degress primed(?) and fired two more shots. The double looks a lot like the one in the movie. You probably had to be mucho rich to have one in the day.

 

[renovato]

What an absolute work of art and engineering. Guns like that never cease to fascinate me. I wish there were more reproductions and replicas available. There's got to be a market for them with collectors.

 

[grapeshot]

I see that the engraving on the quad looks like "F. A. Grecke St Pertersburg" but the lettering is western rather than cyrillic. Do you know the history of it and what collections these guns are in?

 

[hawkeye1755]

I see that the engraving on the quad looks like "F. A. Grecke St Pertersburg" but the lettering is western rather than cyrillic. Do you know the history of it and what collections these guns are in?

Johann Adolf Grecke, 1755-90, 1779 in St.Petersburg worked for tsarina Katharina the Great.It's a 4 barrel pistole from 1780.
2 smoothbore and 2 rifled barrels in cal.12mm.
It was sold for 30000 EURO by Herman Historica Munich Link
He also make this pair of ivory pistols

Pair of flintlock pistols of Empress Catherine the Great, 1786
Johan Adolph Grecke (Russian, recorded 1755”“90)
Russian (Saint Petersburg)
Steel, ivory, gold, and brass
These pistols are part of a deluxe garniture of ivory-stocked hunting arms made for Empress Catherine the Great (r. 1762”“96), whose initial (E for Ekaterine) is on the escutcheons (the grips). The garniture, which originally consisted of these pistols, a fowling piece dated 1786 (National Museum, Warsaw), and a rifle (whereabouts unknown), was later given to her favorite, Prince Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (1732”“1798), whom she backed as king of Poland (r. 1764”“95). Firearms with ivory stocks, generally out of fashion in western Europe by the eighteenth century, became a favorite in the ostentatious Russian court during the last quarter of the century.
:hatsoff:

 

[SAJones]

A bit off the topic of multiple barrel FLs, but when I watch the old movies, I keep thinking that the guns they used were not replicas: they were the real thing. Many were modified, like the infamous 1873 trapdoors w/ wads of some silvery colored stuff added on to make them look like FL muskets (eg, John Wayne's "Alamo"). I've seen & handled many of these. It's hard to comprehend the many now-valuable antiques used up by Hollywood 'cause at the time they were just "old guns".

 

[brno]

I love those Ivory stocked pistols, real quality work there. My hat is off to the craftman :hatsoff:

 

[TFoley]

I see that the engraving on the quad looks like "F. A. Grecke St Pertersburg" but the lettering is western rather than cyrillic. :hatsoff:

In general, the Tzarist Russian court spoke French and English, the use of their own native Russian being thought of as 'uncouth' for some reason.

Katherine's ancestor, Peter the Great, actually spent a few years in London, at Deptford Shipyards, learning how to build naval ships, and was an accomplished English speaker. He naturally imported his love of the language back to his court. Everybody complied, after all, not only was he the Czar, but he was almost seven feet tall as well. Pyotr Vyelikyy means GREAT as well as Great :winking:

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