The Duck's Foot Pistols That Were Worth Thousands On Pawn Stars

Sometimes people bring some really wild stuff into the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on "Pawn Stars" — and sometimes that wild stuff is worth a lot of money. There was John F. Kennedy's humidor that Rick bought for $60,000 in 2013. More recently, there was a pristine copy of the vintage video game "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" valued between $70,000 and $80,000. But one of the most surprising high-value items in "Pawn Stars" history is the set of antique duck's foot pistols a guy brought into the shop in the Season 12 episode "Pawning Pistols."

The seller, a gun collector named Chris, brought in a pair of volley pistols that were custom-made for a British naval officer in the 1700s. A volley pistol is a handgun with multiple barrels. Before revolvers were invented, it was the only way to have a gun capable of firing more than one shot without reloading. This particular volley pistol has four barrels splayed out so the shooter can cover a wide radius with a single shot. This style of gun is known as a "duck's foot."

"I see why they call 'em a duck foot," Chumlee said as he picked up one of the guns to inspect it. "Looks like a little duck foot."

The seller wanted $50,000 for them, an asking price that left Chum visibly nervous, because he wasn't supposed to be dealing with big-ticket items like that. Chum said he was interested, as long as Chris agreed to take them to the range to test them out, which he did, because he wanted to fire them, too. So off they went, along with Corey and Rick to supervise and Alex Cranmer, the guys' on-call gun expert, to consult.

Alex was very excited to handle the guns. He explained that volley pistols were used for crowd control, and these guns had been certified by the 18th-century British government as safe to use — they weren't going to blow up in anyone's hand. Since it was Chum's deal, he got to fire at the targets first, followed by Corey. All four of Corey's shots hit marks, while Chum only hit one (via YouTube).

Corey asked Alex what the guns were worth. "They're the real deal," Alex answered. "They're rare, they're really early by a known maker, and they fire. These are not inexpensive pistols. I value them at $45,000." Alex wanted the shop to buy them, because they may not ever see guns like these again. Chris still wanted $50,000, but Corey countered with $20,000. Chris came back with $40,000. Corey said $30,000 was the most he could do. He wouldn't do $35,000. Chris couldn't take anything less than that, so the deal fell through.

"I wasn't able to make a deal today with the volley pistols, but I think that I'm gonna have to fend off a whole crowd of buyers once I get them back out there," Chris said.