Shooting Times & Country Magazine
All hail the new vintage
Antiques Roadshow specialist Marc Allum examines the timeless allure of English guns and why they can offer great value for money
Call me old-fashioned but I have a rather anachronistic view when it comes to shooting; I prefer to look like someone who has stepped out of another epoch. My predilection for hammerguns is the main raison d’etre for this time-travelling obsession and is founded mainly out of my conviction that the aesthetic qualities of a hammergun form a more than tangible link to the romantic days of flintlock, percussion and blackpowder. Of course, there are many who have an inherent distrust of old guns, particularly hammerguns, mainly because — before the advent of the rebounding lock in the 1860s — you had to exercise extreme caution when loading or at half-cock.
I also enjoy the ritualistic and nostalgic nostril-dilating experience of shooting blackpowder, but I sometimes break my own rules if the weather is particularly bad and use a less coveted boxlock. However, I will never, under any circumstances, use an over-andunder — it just doesn’t feel right.
My personal favourites include a 20bore hammergun by George H. Daw; well used but with glowing Damascus barrels. There are also an outstanding George Gibbs 12-bore sidelock with wonderful engraving; a big old beast by Ward & Sons with one of my own workshop “conservation” bluing jobs; and, for the fowl (sic) weather, my Thomas Turner lightweight or Frederick Williams boxlock. This last has a quirky collection of early 20th century silver appliques, no doubt added by a flamboyant Victorian owner — something different.
So the question remains, I suppose, what do I get out of shooting? Given that I’m so fickle and I don’t like driven shoots, I look for a degree of personal satisfaction that is very different to the world of what is often termed “lifestyle” shooting.
I rough shoot, partly for the exercise but also to see the deer bounding across the fields early on an autumn morning. Couple this with the sheer exhilaration of holding and using a sporting gun that was fashioned with great skill and that is, in my terms of reference, a true antique and the attraction is plain to see. It is a ritual, just as cleaning a gun after a day’s shooting is something that can never be forsaken, no matter how tempting that chair by the fire looks.
Deep pockets
“Lifestyle shooting” is not a derogatory term. Like any collector, I yearn for superlative examples of the things that most interest me. I also have a budget, so an antique Purdey
12-bore bar-in-wood hammergun is unlikely ever to grace my cabinet. There is a notion that the modern Purdey “lifestyle brand” is not really aimed at people like me but rather those with much deeper pockets who buy into the entire way of life.
Of course, Purdey is not the only gunmaker to adopt this approach; Holland & Holland has taken it to gloriously new heights of conspicuous consumption with its collaborative luxury range rover shooting brake. Both are creating the antiques of