Singing Bird Pistols Made in Geneva

Chonday ^ | Christie's Auction House

[Swordmaker]

Apart from their cost, diamonds are in fact beautiful. Their dirty little trick is that they have a higher refractive index than just about any other crystalline substance, which is what makes them “sparkle”.

Another gem stone has 2.45 times the refraction of a diamond and It's almost as hard. With birefringent qualities, the flare of a Moissanite is more colorful as well as being brighter and more sparkly than a diamond. With a Mohs hardness rating of 9.4, it will scratch anything except a diamond. An electronic diamond tester will show a Moissanite to be a diamond when tested. A jeweler can easily recognize the difference because of the superior refractive quality of the Moissanite, I.e., they're prettier!

[Telepathic Intruder]

Tell you the truth, I got a little teary-eyed looking at those things. I have an idea. Don’t give it to me because I would be hypnotized staring at it and not eat for a month.

[Nailbiter]

So does chewed pop tart- does not make it a gun😀

[Nailbiter]

Beautiful clock work mechanism

[redfreedom]

Very enjoyable to watch.

Imagine one of today’s snowflakes creating something like this.

[Kommodor]

Obviously we need a return to feudalism so that our betters can afford more trinkets such as these. (/sarc)

Very nice, I’d say pity they don’t make stuff like this these days, but that’s not quite true. The modern equivalents are orbiting in space/on the moon.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Ask any MSM reporter, it’s a Glock.

[Moltke]

I’m having trouble getting my head around the need for two matching examples being sold as a pair.

Duelling pistols came in pairs. This, then, would be duelling banjos music automata.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

These are not actually pistols as they do not shoot, but are actually music boxes that pop out a mechanical robot bird covered in feathers that moves and sings like a real bird.

In other words....useless.

[Telepathic Intruder]

It’s clearly a redundancy system, in case one fails. You don’t want to be standing there with a gun that doesn’t pop a little singing bird out. The consequences might be dire. In this (though probably unlikely) case, you just pull out the backup. And quick—before the other monarch thinks it’s a real gun and war begins.