As Seen At The Gun Show: Holt's Of London

Yeah yeah been a while I know, life. Life, I tell you, it keeps getting in the way.
The Bambi Basher and I used to make it a habit to visit the Holt's December sale and sink a few libations after we'd sharpened our appetites on the vol au vent, and party fancy's served. Sadly we've both been beset with that curse of the drinking classes, work, and have missed the tradition for the last couple of years.

Not to have my enthusiasm dampened I popped along to what turns out to be the last Holt's in Hammersmith [they're moving to Blackheath for the next sale].

The Holt's salesroom never disappoints, there were as ever, acres of fine English shotguns but lacking the tempo, or fiscal temperament, for them my interest is in the riflery.
Some epic swag on offer this time



A Volly-Gun in 22LR was curio I'd not seen before. If you're like me, the kind who can be relied on for one sweet trigger pull per session, it could well be the sporting advantage we've been looking for?



While an acquaintance was showing me around the pistol table I saw this little fella, a Charge Tester. You can verify the potency of your powder against it's spring.





For a price approaching the the value of a nicely appointed Casa a Piscina in Spain this magazine-fed spin on the double rifle was on show.

As regular readers know my champagne tastes on a beer income veer more in the direction of the take-down rifle. 

Holt's will always be, primarily about English guns, with a few high-end german pieces. So it was nice to see a couple of examples of the work of a South African 'smith of growing renown Bernie Laubscher, look him up, very highly thought of in his homeland.
If the examples on offer were anything to go by a collectable of the future, and with an expected sale price of £2000 - £2500 something of a bargain too. SOLD £3,400.00

Fancy a bit of history with your take-down rifle? How about this? 

 

Chatting with one of the curators revealed that this rifle would have cost the price of two four bedroom houses in central-ish London at the time. You could barely by a parking space for its sale price of £36,000.00  these days. 

There's alway one eccentric offering that people will bid on just to be able to tell their pals that they own one, and this year it was this triple barrelled, er, duck gun?

Wouldn't be Holt's without some displays of the 'Out of Office Plumage' of the eccentric sporting type.

More soon
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SBW