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News from John Dickson & Son - December 2025

December 2025

News Articles

December Business Hours,

Vintage Gun Inventory Update

Charles Gordon - A Christmas Present To Myself,

World Gunmakers Evening 2026,

A Scottish Gun For An American Soldier

December Business Hours

Please note our final day of business in 2025 will be

Friday 19th December and we will be closing at 5pm.

We have decided to take an extended break during the festive season

and will not reopen until Monday 5th January 2026.

If you require to get in contact with us during this time,

please use the contact form Here

Vintage Gun Inventory Update

John Dickson & Son holds the largest collection of pre-owned Dickson Round-Action guns, including rare models from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each piece in our collection has been sympathetically restored by our expert craftsmen, ensuring that these historic firearms perform as beautifully as the day they were first created.

Whether you are looking to grow your collection or upgrade your current sporting gun, John Dickson & Son also has a superb range of pre-owned vintage guns from other Scottish gun and rifle makers. All guns have been prepared through our workshop making them available for immediate sale and delivery, and working with our export partners we can facilitate sending your purchase to a nominated firearms dealer in your country. We have consignments leaving for the USA on a monthly basis.

Recently added to our inventory:

We also have some distinguished Dickson guns currently going through the workshop being prepared for sale:

John Dickson & Son Boxlock - Built 1907, 12 gauge, 29in steel barrels, 2 3/4in chambers
John Dickson & Son Boxlock - Built 1916, 12 gauge, 29in steel barrels, Harry Kell engraved
John Dickson & Son Boxlock - Built 1939, 12 gauge, 27in steel barrels, lightweight model

For comprehensive information on our current inventory, including detailed specifications, provenance, and pricing, please get in touch using our contact form Here

Charles Gordon - A Christmas Present To Myself

What do you do on Christmas day? Same as most people, family, presents, big meal, and settle down in front of the TV? Well not if you are Charles Gordon and the date is the 25th December 1888. You leave your estate, travel by train to Edinburgh, get out at Waverley station, walk along Princes Street until you come to No. 63, enter John Dickson & Son’s shop and collect your spectacular Christmas present, a double 4 bore hammer shotgun weighing 24lbs and with 42” barrels.

This would be one of nineteen sporting firearms that Charles Gordon would take delivery of in 1888, and one of three breaching loading 4 bore guns he received as part of his 231 haul of firearms he ordered from John Dickson & Son between 1868 and 1906.

The World Gunmakers Evening 2026

John Dickson & Son are pleased to announce that they will be exhibiting at The World Gunmakers Evening 2026 being held at The Savoy Hotel in central London on the 20th May 2026. Against the luxurious backdrop of The Savoy, it is a fantastic opportunity for guests to indulge in craftsmanship from Scotland's oldest gunmaker, where we will have a selection of exquisite Dickson guns on display. Entrance is via an advanced ticket purchase and further information can be found via the link below.

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A Scottish gun for an American Soldier

We recently came across a beautiful little 20 gauge Dickson boxlock gun, built in 1919, and with an unusual specification - 28 inch damascus barrels, pistol-grip stock and a single-trigger. A check of the Dickson records revealed this gun was built for a Captain in Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, but he was Scottish by name only, as he was an American citizen.

Arnold Fraser-Campbell was born into a wealthy Scots-American family in New York in 1885. The second of three sons of Evan James and Edna Arnold Fraser-Campbell, who were originally from Dunmore in Scotland, having emigrated to the United States. The onset of The Great War prompted the three Fraser-Campbell brothers, all three Harvard graduates with promising careers and with no obligation to join the war effort, to return to Scotland to join the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.

The youngest of the three brothers, Second Lieutenant William Baillie Fraser-Campbell applied for a commission in 1915 and was attached to the 7th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He was killed in action in France in March 1918 and is remembered on the Pozieres Memorial in the Somme Department, France. A fellow officer wrote of him that he was “loved and adored by his men… who in his company would have gone through fire and water with him. He was the pride of the 7th A & SH.” The eldest brother, Evan, also served with the Argylls in France and was demobilised in 1919.

Captain Arnold Fraser-Campbell, of the 8th Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, was wounded three times and lost his left arm in action. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1918 'After being in action for three days and having captured all his objectives, he went forward in a further attack, under a heavy hostile barrage and intense machinegun fire. He showed splendid courage and determination.'

When the war ended he demobilised to Scotland and would eventually return to New York, but not before ordering a special gun to take back home - a 20 gauge Dickson boxlock with a pistol-grip stock and single trigger which would allow the Captain to use a lightweight gun solely with his right arm. The gun is still owned within the Fraser-Campbell family and is a symbol of the conspicuous gallantry and devotion the three brothers showed to defend their homeland.

‘The Singing Boys’ marble relief sculpture by Herbert Adams in 1894 depicting Evan, Arnold and William Fraser-Campbell when they were 10, 8 and 5 years old.

The sculpture now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA