Gentlemen,

just recently I received a Westley Richards boxlock shotgun with hand detachable locks in 12 ga, SN 16662 made in 1905. Cased with all accessories.



Although my main interest are guns made by J. P. Sauer & Sohn, Suhl, I ALWAYS wanted to own such a fine gun. For my opinion it's the epitome of an understatement shotgun: looks like a normal boxlock - but it isn't.

Now my dream came true - and I received more, than I ever expected: the gun ownership is fully documented as the gun comes directly from the first owner's great-grandson. The shotgun is an interesting piece of English-German family history.

But first of all, for

The Gun

According to Westley Richard's ledger, SN 16662 was sold on 11. July 1906 at the Birmingham shop to a F. Albrecht.





The gun has the famous hand-detachable locks for which John Deeley and Leslie Bown Taylor (WR's managing director at that time) received British patent No.17,731 of 1897. The early guns with the hand-detachable locks (like #16662) had a fully removable cover plate, while the later guns (from 1908 on?) had a hinged cover plate (The hinged cover plate was subject of British patent 23,088 of 1908, filed in British Patent Office on 30. October 1908).

#16662 has the patented selective single trigger (Leslie Bown Taylor's British patent No. 11,062 of 1901; inventor: Allan Edward Lard, Buchanan County, MO, USA), fine scroll engravings and the usual features of such a model of that period.