Civil War era pistol discovered in St. Aubin's Bay

Wednesday 12 April 2017

A rare pistol from the Civil War was discovered in a remarkable condition by a metal detectorist scanning the beach in St Aubin’s Bay.

The pistol has an unusual wheel-lock mechanism typical of the early 1600s. It is considered rare because such pistols were complex to make and therefore expensive to buy.

Tony Collins, who has been metal detecting for four years and who is a member of the Jersey Metal Detecting Society, found the pistol in February. It is believed only few people would have owned such a pistol and it is therefore thought likely that it belonged to an officer.

Mr Collins, who previously discovered  a well-preserved (and still live) shrapnel ball from 1805, says this latest discovery is his most exciting to date: “I wasn’t expecting to find anything in that particular location. There was nobody else on the beach and when I pulled it out of the sand at first I wasn’t sure what it was. But when I knocked some of the encrustation off, I saw the barrel and immediately realised it was significant.” 

Pictured: Tony Collins (left) shows his discovery with Neil Mahrer from Jersey Heritage.

Following his discovery, Mr Collins contacted Neil Mahrer, Conservator at Jersey Heritage, who confirmed the pistol is important.

Mr Mahrer explained: “We have made some initial enquiries of the Royal Armouries and although we won’t know more until it has been carefully cleaned, we can tell what sort of weapon it is from the distinctive clockwork mechanism. We find quite a lot of weapons from later periods but this is the first one I have seen from this age, and with the metal still intact. It is a very special object.”

It is thought that much of the original material has been preserved because the pistol was lying in black sand, which has very low oxygen content. While, a great deal of the pistol is hidden beneath 400 years of encrustation, x-rays might help uncover more of its secrets.

The pistol is now undergoing a delicate conservation process that could over a year. First, the metal parts will be separated from the wood, the parts will then be treated to dry them out and conserve them before rebuilding the weapon.  

When it has been cleaned and stabilised, Mr Collins hopes the pistol will go on display. He said: “We will probably never know how it ended up where it was, but the most likely scenario is that an officer who was boarding a ship dropped it into the sea. In its day, it would have been a very expensive item so if it has just been dropped on the sand, the owner would have picked it up.”