A pistol owned by British explorer Captain James Cook, who first claimed Australia for Britain in 1770, will go on the auction block on February 14 in Melbourne.
For a sea captain to accumulate things was unusual and, in his case, very little survived that was returned to the family
The brass pistol, an early 18th-century Continental Flintlock holster pistol with a 13-bore barrel made by Dutch gunmaker Godefroi Corbau Le Jeune, is expected to fetch between €77,000 to €155,000. One of a rare handful of personal effects remaining from the explorer, the gun – handed down through generations of Cook’s family – is a symbol of his relationship to the vast continent, said auctioneer Leski Auctions.
“We’ve got bits of his ship, and bits of this and bits of that, but for a sea captain to accumulate things was unusual and in his case very little survived that was returned to the family,” said Charles Leski, Leski’s founder.
“This particular pistol was specifically willed to his sister and stayed in the family for all those generations .”
Cook reached the coast of Australia in April 1770, the first recorded European to encounter the continent’s eastern coast, after mapping the coastline of New Zealand. In August, he planted the British flag on Possession Island in northern Queensland.
Cook made two later exploratory expeditions to the Pacific and was killed in Hawaii in 1779.