doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Colindian value help

This my first post on this forum, so please bear with me if this is an inappropriate place to post the question.

A friend has a nice, 1891 vintage, Lancaster Colindian. It's a WWII bring-back from Italy with an Italian name engraved on the trigger guard. I'd call it an 85 or 90 percent gun, certainly in the NRA Very Good category.

And I may have a chance to buy it. The trouble being, neither of us can find any resource that can give us anything like a current fair market value on the piece. Is there a resource somewhere -- heck even a current auction sale -- that might give us a line on a fair price?

First thing is pitcures if possible, including proof marks. 12 or 16 ga. Description like barrel length.

Sorry, don't have access to the gun today to provide pictures, but I can probably do that in a day or two. If I recall correctly it has 28 inch barrels, 12 gauge, 2 1/2 inch chambers. It is not an ornate gun in any way -- very "working shotgun" in appearance, save for its rifle sights.

An interesting gun and one made for use in India and Africa etc. It has smooth 'non-fouling' oval bore rifleing; hence the sights. Quite collectable. Meant for shot and solid slug. A sort of all round gun and was Lancaster's answer to Holland's 'Paradox' guns. They don't come up for sale vary often. Some of the British auction houses will have one come through from time to time but prices that guns make in the U.S. vary widely to that in the U.K. Lagopus.....

Oddnews
Welcome to the site
Looking forward to the pictures
Mike

http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2014/01/oval-bores-and-colindian.html

Wonder if this gun was picked up by Italian forces in Africa in WWII? Not impossible; for a while (short) they were winning down there.... Or just looted from an English property in Italy when the owners left for safer surroundings.

And remember many Italians, especially Sicilians and the upper crust on the mainland, were quite Anglophilic/lukewarm Fascists and NOT enthusiastic about fighting the British and Americans, especially naval officers. So it might originally have been an English gun owned by an Italian.

Just another one of those darned "if only it could talk" situations.

True, those rascals went into what is now Ethiopia in the hope of expanding an Africa Empire. A friend of mine fought the Italians in Africa and he told me that his memory of one episode was that they were charged at their camp by Italian Cavalry and of watching his commanding officer standing outside his tent in his dressing gown directing operations while eating a tin of pineapple chunks; all very British. The Italians of course lost.

Like you say; if only that gun could talk. Lancaster records are still intact so a small part of its early life may be traceable. Lagopus.....

Anyone interested in the Italian opera "WWII" should read Peter Fleming's "A Spy in Rome." He was Ian Fleming's funnier younger brother and an MI-6 spy with many Italian royalist friends.

When the Gestapo and OVRA FINALLY got onto him, he escaped by joining the Fascist African Military Police (the Fascists were STILL "dreaming of Africa"). They praised his Fascist zeal, issued him a Beretta M1938 burp gun, and he went right on spyin'....

These were commonly know as the "Colonial " model usually plain guns with no or borderline engraving . I have also seen a "Coladian " for the Canadian market .

An interesting thread.
I wonder about the origin of the name. It would appear to be based on that form of pigdin English beloved of marketing types combining Colonial and Indian to Colindian.... sort of like the Ovunda. I understand that Colindian is a sort of slur for indians in South Africa but I doubt that's the origin.
So perhaps you're correct and the Canadian variant really should be the Coladian?

Jeremy