Folks, Scott Igert is a very good friend of mine and he and his wife own Michigan Gun Exchange in Saint Joseph, MI. Once in a while he gets in some amazingly rare/unique firearms that he and I get to look over and today was one of those times. In this particular case, he has this pistol into sell on consignment.
At a high level, it is a tap action pistol from a bygone era. tap action pistols had 2-4 barrels and the user rotated a lever to direct the spark from the primed pan into the selected barrel. This action was used in the 1700s to 1800s – I saw quite a date range of tap lock pistols when I was trying to figure out what Scott turned up.
Okay, the pistol was made by a London, England, gunsmith at “Anderson & Co”. I tried digging on that name and didn’t have any luck. I was told once that there were a lot of people making firearms in London during that era so perhaps he was a small shop.
What really caught my eye was extensive engraving on the metal surfaces, finely shaped checkered pistol grip and an amazing carved lion head on the pommel. This was not a hack job – a ton of hand work went into this. The grip feels great even today.
I’ve been digging for a couple of hours and can’t find any info on Anderson & Co or this pistol other than it being a tap action. I’ve not had a pistol intrigue me this much in a long time.
Scott and I are really interested to know more so if you have any info, please email me at in**@ro*********.com.
Again, if you have any further details, we’d love to learn more. Email me at in**@ro*********.com – we’ll share the results here of course.
By the way, the closest looking pistol was made in Birmingham by a different gunsmith. Other than that, all the tap action pistol photos I can find are quite different.
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