I was just browsing the website for the Royal Armouries Museum and had a look at their air pistol collection list. Although photo’s are almost non-existent they do give names to their pistols (sometimes incorrectly), and they do give information about the provenance of each item in the collection. I was surprised to find that almost were donated by the police after various firearms amnesties. I was even more surprised by some of the models that the general public had handed in to the police. Here are some of the more unexpected surrenderings (more than one of each in some cases):

Titan; Lincoln; Abas Major, boxed. Abas Major, unboxed; Pope Rifle Air Pistol; Scout, boxed; Thunderbolt Junior, Webley Junior, chrome plated; Webley Mk 2 Target, boxed; Haenel 28; Tell 2; Hubertus; Warrior; Acvoke; Harrington Gat; Garanta; Diana 2 gat; Excellent Phantom Repeater.

I suppose we should be thankful that they weren’t melted down for scrap, but it seems a shame that perfectly legal vintage airguns were taken out of collecting circles unnecessarily. They now remain buried in museum archives, undisplayed and with no photographs or descriptive details on record. Some of the meagre information that is provided even has errors [for example, the Dolla pistol, spelt wrongly as Dollar, is stated to have been by T.J. Harrington, and the Tell 2 is claimed to have been by Sauer].