Old or new?

[rickystl]

Hi Corrado.

Somehow I missed this Thread. I agree with Kubur here. Early 20th Century Tourist pistols made to loosely resemble an Ottoman style. Much better quality than the later ones made about the 1950's to today. And as mentioned, often made with a combination of old original parts, and new made parts. While the locks were made functional, none of the primary working parts were hardened and tuned for use as a genuine firearm. Occasionally, one will turn up with an original barrel. But usually they were just steel pipe shaped to the desired fashion. From the top down, the locks on the first and third pistols looked to be 20th Century castings - though well done. But the second pistol has a genuine Turkish/Ottoman lock that was typical of the period style. See below.
Actually, you seldom run across these earlier tourist examples. So they could be considered somewhat collectable in their own rights. I guess by about the 1950's most of the original parts supply had dried up. Thus the introduction of the low grade tourists pistol as shown below, which I think are still be sold today.

You are probably aware of the similar fad during the Victorian Period where vast amounts of copies of guns/blades/armour were made to satisfy the decorator rage in Europe at the time. Often the guns would be made utilizing original locks. The blades and armour show up all the time at auctions.

Rick