Could this be a prototype for the T.J.Harrington Gat?

[ccdjg]

With the greatest respect there is no provenance to suggest it's status is anything more than a homemade project apart from a few similarities that may or may not have been copied from an original.

It could equally even be a competitor's prototype...?

Without any provenance, I don't see its status being anything other than an interesting curiosity.

I agree perfectly with your last point.

However, I am always surprised by the general feeling among collectors that there was a plethora of amateurs out there making their own prototypes, and creating confusion. I have been collecting and researching air pistols now for 45 years, and I can count on one hand the number of unidentifiable British-made pistols that have come to light in all those years. So on the very rare occasions that they turn up I don't think we can just shrug them off as 'just another cobbled together project'. We need to seriously ask the question, what motivated the creation of the gun?