40.25inch sighted two-stage damascus barrel with gold maker's poincon at the breech, further inlaid with platinum embellishments and stamped with proof and maker's marks IG for Joseph Griffin, gold lined touch hole, border and scroll engraved lock signed GRIFFIN, the cock decorated to match, full stock foliate carved about the silver mounts, border and scroll engraved Continental style side plate, ornate rococo escutcheon engraved with the crest of a demi-lion emerging from a ducal coronet bearing a palm branch, border and scroll engraved butt plate hallmarked London 1762 and with maker's mark JA for Jeremiah Ashley wooden ramrod. A virtually identical gun, though made 9 years later in 1771 and by then under the partnership of Griffin & Tow, sold recently as lot 25 in the Professor David S. Weaver Collection at Olympia Auctions which sold with a hammer price of £9,500. The fore-end with neat repair to barrel wedge area and a split at the fore of the lock and side plate area.