...as you write the check for this nice .455 Webley Mk.I(N).
Mine's not quite as pretty, but given the cost difference, I think I'll live with it. Personally, I think his asking price is way high for an RN pistol. If it was an RHA or RFC gun? Sure. But a Navy gun? That's all of a $1,500 pistol, maybe a bit more. Ah well, there's always a greater fool out there somewhere...
(H/T to TD of The Unforgiving Minute, via email.)
Ouch. I used to think there was no intrinsically ugly firearm, but I am wrong. It's like the moment a pilot sees a Shorts Skyvan for the first time; you realize that a wonderful bit of design can look like the dogs breakfast.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how that's the exactly at the other end of the Pretty scale from the Webley Mk. IV. Well, in my opinion anyway.
ReplyDeleteSomeone on this blog once commented (and fairly accurately IMHO) that most British handguns looked like they had been designed by someone who had not only never held a handgun before, but didn't like them very much, either.
ReplyDelete:-D
It's a bit like asking a vegan to design a barbequeue, ain't it?
ReplyDeleteThe "Yankee Armorer" ... I know this guy. Has quite a few nice pistols in his shop. His prices are way over the top on most of them. JimB
ReplyDeleteSucker makes the nambus look pretty, it does.
ReplyDeletethe guy is probably not used to the high hit count that Tam is driving on his auction
ReplyDeleteI dare to question.
ReplyDeleteRespectfully submit that the "never held one" comment is clever, but wrong. Until the mid 20th century, British handguns were the best, or as good as the best, personal self defense tools available when made.
(Given the ammunition and state of reliability gunsmithing the time.)
Pick a date between 1800 and the end of the first German war, and a pistol from Britain would probably be your first or as good as your first choice.
Not surprising, because I believe that as a class British officers and expatriates were doing more armed defending of themselves during that period than any one else. What gun to take to some hellhole was a matter of importance. They shared their experiences, and the makers paid attention. The mystifying variety of revolvers from English makers during 1860-1900 is a survival of a serious experimenting culture.
Most people don't know it, but Britain produced almost all the "how to" fighting handgun literature in the 19th century, too. Obvious, really- those frontier subalterns and deputy collectors were both literate and literary.
The Americans who were pistol fighting in the same period didn't much run to letters, magazine articles, and books.
Since gun nuts like pointless controversy, I thought I'd put up a post at my nonsense in case any one wants to pile onto me about it. I'll shoot back.