Charles Lancaster has long understood the importance of the American market. In 1904 when the storied London gunmaker showed its wares at The Universal Exhibition in St. Louis, orders were directed to an agent in New York. Fifty years later Stoeger, on Fifth Avenue, was offering Lancaster Twelve-Twentys for £350. Now a revived Charles Lancaster has appointed a new US importer with a New York address.
According to Col. Peter Hawker, the British author of Instructions to Young Sportsmen, the original Charles Lancaster was a Regency-era barrel borer who “raised many gunmakers to the head of the trade by allowing them to put their names to what was his work in all the essential parts of the barrels.” Since then Lancaster has changed hands many times while maintaining a reputation for fine firearms. More recently George Juer, Tom Cosby, Margarita Booker and Francis Beardsworth relaunched the brand and appointed as the US importer Country Pursuits & Outfitters. Country Pursuits is the brainchild of Robert Pearson and David Cruz, two Holland & Holland alumni who started the business when H&H closed its New York City premises, in 2017.
“I first met [David] when he worked for H&H and I was at Purdey,” Juer said. “Following my acquiring Charles Lancaster last year, I wished to find an established representative in the US that was familiar with English best gunmaking but not attached to any other major English names. I immediately thought of David and his relatively new company. They are in the right location with the right client base and with the right attitude to modern marketing methods, including an online and social media presence. The deal was a perfect fit for us both. We will be exhibiting together at the SCI Convention, in Nashville, in 2023, and we are planning on sending some guns and rifles to them once we have built up some inventory.”