5/25/2021 – Arms and Armor

12 Gauge, 32″ barrels with concave rib, no S/N. Damascus pattered brown barrels, color case hardened locks, blued iron furniture, checkered walnut straight-gripped stock with smooth iron buttplate and checkered splinter forend, secured by a single key. Double hammers, double triggers, platinum blowouts, small German silver escutcheon in toe line of stock for the engraving of initials or a crest is not marked. Includes a brass tipped wooden ramrod that is probably a replacement. Top rib engraved in a single line TJ ALBRIGHT & SONS St LOUIS FINE TWIST. Bottoms of barrels with post-1813 Birmingham commercial proof marks and 12 gauge marks, additionally marked W&CS, the mark of long time Birmingham gunmakers William & Charles Scott, one of the primary forerunners of the later 19th century firm of Webley & Scott. Locks and cocks lightly engraved with loose English style foliate scrolls and marked TJ ALBRIGHT & SONS. John Thomas Albright (1808-1890) was a Pennsylvania native who worked as a gunsmith in Stroudsburg, PA ca1835-40 prior to moving to St. Louis and opening a gunmaking and retailing establishment in 1842. He was joined by his sons John Thomas Jr. and William in the business ca1849, becoming TJ Albright & Sons. Albright was a contemporary of the other major St. Louis gunmakers of the period of western expansion and the “plains rifle”, including the iconic Hawkens and H.E. Dimick. While he concentrated on building rifles, like most American gunmakers of the period he relied upon imported shotguns from England and Belgium to service those clients who wanted one, as the guns could be imported more cheaply than produced in America during that time. A very scarce example of a circa 1850s St. Louis retailer marked percussion shotgun that would be a wonderful addition to a display of fine western rifles like those by Hawken, Albright and Dimick.