The American John Moses Browning made his first firearm at the age of 13 in his father's shop in Utah. After falling out with his employers, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1902, he headed for Europe. Teaming up with the Fabrique Nationale (FN) in Herstal and Liege, Belgium, he went on to design some famous automatic weapons including the FN Model 1910 blowback pistol used by Gavrilo Princip to assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo in June 1914, the event that sparked the First World War.

Another well-known Browning blowback pistol was his 1905 6.35mm (.25 ACP) Vest Pocket pistol, intended for self-defence, and the smallest of his designs. Models made between 1931 and 1979 bore the name ‘Baby’ on the grip and this example dates to around 1950. The Baby had a 6-round magazine and was accurate to eight metres. It created surprisingly substantial recoil and so required a firm grip. It was ideal for concealment and there are tales of members of the French Resistance hiding them in cigarette packets during the Second World War.