Colonial collection goes under the hammer

Artefacts from the days of the British Empire to be sold at Montrose

A broad range of artefacts from the British Empire’s colonial past will go under the hammer in Angus this weekend.

Taylor’s Auction Rooms in Montrose will offer more than 3,000 lots of “fascinating” items from Africa, America, the Pacific Rim and the UK tomorrow.

Bids are invited on a number of Victorian-era curios from Africa including tribal masks, figures, spears and knobkerrie fighting sticks.

Saleroom manager Jonathan Taylor said the largest number come from the Congo, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and South Africa.

“These were gathered over a number of years by a collector based in Aberdeenshire whose family had first visited Africa at the turn of the century,” he said.

Unusual blunderbuss firearms will also be up for auction, along with an extensive collection of 18th and 19th Century pistols and sporting guns.

A late 18th Century brass-barrelled flintlock blunderbuss, by the London gunsmith Knubley & Co, is estimated at £600 to £800.

Knubley & Co was gunmaker to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence, who became George IV and William IV respectively.

Another significant firearm up for sale is a rare officer’s “pill-lock” pistol from the early 19th Century.

“These were rarely used by the British Army as the pellets required for firing were too small and easy to lose in combat situations,” Mr Taylor added.

Among the other firearms is a “blunderbuss pistol” by Thomson of Doncaster, estimated at £700 to £900.

The guns appear beside a wide range of taxidermy studies from the plains of

These were rarely used by the British Army ... JONATHAN TAYLOR

Africa including ibex, springbok and hartebeest, and a Victorian display with indigenous Australian birds.

Other items to be sold include a Native American Plains Indian head-dress with coyote fur and feathers, with beadwork decoration, and a 19th Century dervish sword.

One African mask is in baulewood with horned head-dress, and another is possibly Inuit.

Picture: Paul Reid. Lisa Tuberfield with some of the guns and pistols to be auctioned at Taylor’s.