Hi Jon.
That is a very nice pistol. At first glance, one might conclude this is a Caucasian made pistol. Caucasian made guns seem to heavily favor the use of Persian styled miquelet locks, such as this example. While undecorated, this lock appears robust and of good quality. While the fore end of the stock tapers to the muzzle in typical Caucasian fashion, the grip area of the butt is more like European styling, some what. With the exception of occassional small brass decorations, these pistols were mostly void of any regular use of brass. Iron or silver was favored. The ivory/bone decoration (walrus ivory was common) also seemed to follow Persian styling. Speaking of brass, that's interesting the use of a brass stud on the barrel band itself for use as a rudimentary front sight.
But, after looking closer at the great pics you posted, there are three things I notice that are not common with Caucasian pistols: 1. As mentioned, the styling of the butt stock. 2. The lack of a deep makers mark on the outside of the lock which seem to be common on all the Caucasian made locks I've seen. 3. Most notably, the barrel tang. The tang on this pistol is of a common style/length you see on most pistols with a single tang screw entering from the bottom of the stock. Every Caucasian style pistol I've seen has the long, curved barrel tang that wraps around the outside of the grip area secured with two screws entering below in the grip area (see photo below). This long barrel tang seems to be a hallmark on Caucasion pistols.
Therefore, I'm now leaning towards this pistol being of Persian origin. But I do look forward to others opinions here.
In any case, it's a really nice looking pistol that looks like it has seen regular use, but not abused. Congratulations on a nice find.
Rick
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