A 19th century revolving rifle used by infamous Australian bushranger John Gilbert sold at auction for a record $62,000 in Melbourne on 27 October.
John Gilbert was a member of the Ben Hall Gang in the 1860s, and was reputed to have committed more than 600 crimes before he was finally killed in a shootout with police on 13 May, 1865.
In that shootout, Gilbert was armed with an unusual and stolen Tranter revolver rifle – essentially a Tranter .38-calibre five-shot cap-and-ball revolver action with a rifle stock and a 22.5in (57.5cm) barrel – and was killed by police when the gun misfired.
The rifle, serial number 14954T, was recovered by police at the scene, with the stock supposedly damaged when the dead bushranger fell on it.
After being returned to its owner (and repaired) and passing through various other hands over the next century and a bit, it ended up in the hands of a well-known Tasmanian collector for the past 20 years, before it came up for auction via Australian Fine Arms & Collectibles, with the hammer falling on a record $62,000 bid placed by an Australian buyer.
Australian Fine Arms & Collectibles director David Henderson said it was a record for their auction house, representing the largest single firearm sale price they had recorded to date.
“On the day, there were at least five active bidders seeking to purchase the Gilbert rifle,” he said.
“Due to the ferocious pace of the bidding, there were possibly others wanting to bid but who were ‘knocked out’ before they even had a chance to lodge a bid.
“As well as number of well-known Australian collectors, there were also some lesser-known bidders and at least one Australian museum.”
Mr Henderson said the rifle had attracted a lot of interest not only due to its bushranging history, but the fact that the history was backed up by primary sources from the era, given it a water-tight provenance — although not without some controversy.
“The ‘authoritative’ provenance on this item had previously been provided by amateur Australian bushranger historian Edgar Penzig, who wrote a number of books on this subject; he referenced this rifle and quoted the serial number on it,” Mr Henderson said.
“When Australian Fine Arms catalogued the rifle, we discovered that the Penzig serial number was in fact incorrect —when held in certain light, one of the serial numbers looks like a ‘3’, but is in fact a ‘5’.
“In our catalogue published for the October 2024 auction, we quoted the correct serial number (14954T); we received quite a number of calls from people familiar with the Penzig references advising that we had mis-quoted the serial number.
“We were able to advise them, categorically, that our interpretation of the serial number was the correct one; a major Australian museum has also confirmed that they possess a copy of a newspaper piece, written shortly after Gilbert’s death, which quotes the correct serial number.”
While $62,000 for the Gilbert Tranter rifle is the current record for Australian Fine Arms & Collectibles, Mr Henderson said it was far from the only the high-value item to have passed over the auction block with them.
“From the same collection [at the 27-28 October auction], we also offered a four-barrel derringer belonging to Sir Frederick Pottinger, a police officer involved in the pursuit of the bushranger Ben Hall and Gilbert … this was sold for over $14,000 to another well-known Australian collector,” he said.
“We have also sold quite a number of items in the $20,000 to $60,000 price range [in previous auctions], including a New Haven Arms Co Henry patent lever-action rifle in .44 Henry rimfire for $38,000.
“A number of these [items] were sold post-auction, having been passed in on the day; that is why we ask vendors to allow us to retain passed-in items for at least four weeks, post-auction, as a significant number of these items are sold in the following day and weeks.”
The next Australian Fine Arms & Collectibles auction is set for May, 2025.
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