Very lovely &interesting pin fire. Also interesting the shell in the right barrel carries a VL&D NewYork head stamp. Not familiar with the one in left barrel. Do you know who that VH L is?
The VH L one was made by
V. Francotte May & Cie, of
Liège, Belgium; owned by
Victor Francotte and
Henry May. Their trade name at the time was Capsulerie Liégeoise. A similar headstamp of theirs from the same time period came in packets of 5 in a crate like this:
It is interesting to note that they misspelled Lefaucheux.
Here is an article I did on some of their pinfires a few years back:
And here is a little more info on VL&D shotshells (as well as some other US-loaded ones) from my article in the
IAA Journal a few months ago.
