6/8/2022 – Frontier Firearms from the Lifetime Collection of Larry Ness

.58 caliber. 36.125″ pinned three-stage octagon to round barrel with baluster turned rings at the transition. SN: NSN. Moderately oxidized barrel, brass and iron furniture, walnut stock. Original flint lock marked “WILSON” over “1824″ vertically at the tail and with the Hudson’s Bay Company trademark “{Tombstone Fox/EB}” mark under the bridled and fenced rounded iron pan. Rounded swan neck cock appears original. Breech with London commercial proof marks and a “*/TB” makers mark, indicating the barrel was produced by Thomas Barnett. Stock with “{Circle-Fox}” mark on obverse butt and carved “HB” as well, simple flat brass buttplate retained by seven square head nails. Ribbed brass pipes retain an old trumpet head iron ramrod. William Wilson (I) son of gunmaker Richard Wilson worked in London from the mid-18th century having been Freed of the Gunmakers Company in 1754, until his death in 1808. During that time he was a contractor for the Board of Ordnance, the East India Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. According to Jim Gordon’s research it was Richard Wilson who establish the prototypical pattern of the Northwest Trade Gun, including the brass serpentine sideplate, the oversized large-loop triggerguard, the “double ring” barrel and the flat brass buttplate, all features that help to quickly identify a trade gun from this period.