Cased pair of percussion dueling pistols made by Ronge Lassence of Liege, c. 1850. The pistols have .50 caliber rifled octagon barrels with a spiral Damascus finish. The barrels have dovetail mounted nickel silver front sight blades. A silver band is inlaid around the breech of each barrel. The maker's name and address "LASSENCE-RONGE A LIEGE" is inlaid in gold on a bright niter blue oval with silver inlaid borders on the top of each barrel. A screw-adjustable rear sight is mounted on each barrel tang. The barrel tangs and back straps have a color casehardened finish and are decorated with open foliate engraving. The wedge-fastened, highly figured, European walnut stocks have pierced, relief-carved, scroll work and shell motifs on the forends and deeply carved, fluted, grips. The pistols have casehardened, flush mounted lock-plates with flat faced hammers. The lock plates and hammers are decorated with engraved, double-line borders and open foliate engraving. The tops of the hammers are engraved with a stylized sea serpent motif. The flush mounted side plates and finger-spur trigger guards have a color casehardened finish. Flutes in the cast iron, case-hardened buttcaps align perfectly with the flutes in the grips. The pistols are contained in a European style form fitted case made of highly figured European walnut and lined with green felt. The corners of the case have nickel silver reinforcements. An oval silver inscription plate is inlaid in the top of the lid. The case contains a full set of accessories which include: (1) wooden mallet, (2) carved, silver-plated, handle for ladle and ball screw, (3) combination worm/ball screw, (4) turned, silver-plated steel ladle for casting bullets, (5) silver-plated, single cavity, round ball bullet mold, (6) turned walnut cask for percussion caps, (7) silver plated screw-driver with turned walnut handle, (8) silver plated, bag-shaped, powder flask with adjustable charger, (9) brass powder measure with turned wooden handle, (10) wooden cleaning rod with brass jag and ivory top and (11) wooden ramrod with silver-plated brass top and tip. A compartment with removable lid contains several lead pistol balls and the key for the case. The pistols and accessories are made of the best materials and display the highest quality workmanship.

Excellent. Pistol retains 95% plus of the original Damascus and casehardened finish and appear to be unfired. The percussion nipples have almost all of the original blue finish and the nipples, bolsters and adjacent portions of the barrel are free from flash pitting. The bore is bright and has crisp rifling. The maker's name on the barrel flat retains nearly all of the fiery blue background. The delicate foliate engraving on the tang, lock, back strap and trigger guard is crisp and deep. The stock is in excellent condition and the carved grip and forearm show almost no handling wear. Wear on the stock is limited to some very minor handling marks on the flat below the side plate. The case is very good overall. There are two superficial cracks in the lid along the top and bottom edges and some minor storage marks. The green felt lining is sun-faded but is clean with some compression marks. The accessories are same excellent, unused. This is an exceptional cased pair of very high quality Liege percussion dueling pistols by a well-known maker with a complete set of hand-made, high quality accessories. It would be difficult to find a better pair of European dueling pistols of this type.

As described in "A".

Excellent. Pistol retains 95% plus of the original Damascus and casehardened finish and appears to be unfired. The percussion nipples have almost all of the original blue finish and the nipples, bolsters and adjacent portions of the barrel are free from flash pitting. The bore is bright and has crisp rifling. The maker's name on the barrel flat retains nearly all of the fiery blue background. The delicate foliate engraving on the tang, lock, back strap and trigger guard is crisp and deep. The stock is in excellent condition and the carved grip and forearm show almost no handling wear. Wear on the stock is limited to some very minor handling marks on the flat below the side plate.