POTD: Damascened Orbea Hermanos Pinfire Revolvers
Today’s Photo Of The Day is from the catalog of the upcoming May 2023 Rock Island Premier Firearms Auction and depicts a pair of damascened Orbea Hermanos pinfire revolvers. Damascening is a surface decoration technique of inlaying metals into one another, in this case, gold and silver into steel. This set of wheelguns consists of a 6.5″ barreled 11mm caliber Lefaucheux Model 1854 pattern single action revolver and a 7mm caliber rifled double action pepperbox. Both guns have a similar grape motif of damascene and ebony grip carvings. The set comes in a custom-fit case.
The Orbea Brothers of Eibar (Juan Manuel, Mateo, and Casimo Orbea) opened their shop in 1859 and manufactured mainly Lefaucheux designs initially but also later produced a wide variety of firearms and became the largest of the Eibar gunmakers and the largest of the Spanish handgun manufacturers and later became a bicycle company.
May 2023 Rock Island Premier Firearms Auction will take place from May 19 to May 21, 2023. The estimated price of this pair of Orbea Hermanos pinfire revolvers is $25,000 – $37,500. To browse the catalog of the May 2023 Rock Island Premier Firearms Auction, click HERE.
Images courtesy of Rock Island Auction Company, www.rockislandauction.com
Managing Editor Being a lifelong firearms enthusiast, Hrachya always enjoys studying the history and design of guns and ammunition. Should you need to contact him, feel free to shoot him a message at Hrachya@TheFirearmBlog.com
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would love to know more history about them.
they look as if they have a story to tell.
I don't think that one can be considered a "pepperbox" if only one chamber is fired at a time. If I understand the function correctly, it's more of a six-barreled revolver where both the chamber and the bore are integrated into the cylinder.
An interesting idea that I would like to see implemented in a modern form...