Arms, Armor and Militaria

24-Bore (.58 caliber). 36" pinned multi-stage octagon to round barrel with baluster turned rings at the transitions. NSN. Browned finish, smooth, brass and iron furniture, full-length beechwood stock. Single shot muzzleloading flintlock North West pattern trade gun made for the American Fur Company with the {Tombstone Fox}/IA mark of John Jacob Astor on the lock and top flat of the barrel. 6" slightly convex lock with pointed tail has an integral rounded, fenced and bridled iron pan and a rounded swan neck cock. Steel (frizzen) with a well executed period refacing. Lock remains in original flint. Lock marked in three vertical arches at the tail SARGANT/BROTHERS/1850. Lock and barrel with American Fur Company marks, top barrel flat marked LONDON, left angled breech flat with post-1813 Birmingham commercial proofs. Standard North West gun features include an oversized triggerguard of iron, a flat two-screw brass buttplate with thumb nail tang, rudimentary raised carved aprons at the tang and to the rear of the lock mortise and the classic "snake" (serpent or dragon) sideplate. A carved jag wooden ramrod is secured by two corrugated brass pipes. William Sargant worked at 74 Edmund Street as a Gun, Rifle and Pistol maker in Birmingham circa 1838-1878, doing business variously under the names of WL & H Sargant, Sargant & Son and Sargant Brothers. Sargant Brothers did business with the American Fur Company circa 1840-1850. A lovely example of a late flintlock period North West trade gun. From the Collection of Charles Worman, co-author of the two volume set Firearms of the American West. {ANTIQUE}