Why There Aren't Any

It seems a great many of these fine pistols were held by Pistol Clubs in the UK. For those unaware of (previous) UK pistol laws, a brief overview is that you had to first join a club and demonstrate proficiency with 'a pistol' BEFORE being able to purchase a handgun. Therefore, clubs typically had 'loaners' held by the club itself, probably on members' or multiple members' licenses, for use by applicants and new members looking to get a pistol license.

And, you DID have to have a special license or endorsement on a firearms license to buy or possess a pistol. Legally, in the UK, ALL PISTOLS were registered/listed/made known to the Government, in specific, including who owned them, where they were stored, and how much ammunition (roughly) was on hand for them.

Therefore, most clubs had a few loaners, usually single-shot .22s, there for the purpose of safely teaching pistol handling to people. They were sometimes Czech, sometimes Russian, etc. But traditionally there were a great many Webley Single Shot Pistols held in clubs in the UK. These were, of course, all duly and responsibly registered/listed with the Home Office/Government.

So, when the UK decided to ban handguns (for most practical purposes) all those fine pistols were conveniently located for simple and easy confiscation; and they, for the most part, were.

The WSS wasn't terribly popular outside the UK, being too expensive, irrelevant to most other countries' pistol laws, etc. so I strongly suspect the majority of these pistols never left the Islands; and consequently the Government snapped them up and destroyed them. There are a few left in the UK (more on that later), but the vast majority of what's left of the production is whatever filtered out of the Islands before the Big Crushing.

So; this relatively innocuous, accurate, finely made, delightful (and eminently useful) pistol went from being considered "common" (as described by a former pistol shooter in the UK) to being, now, very likely the very rarest of all Webley products. There are very few left.

If you have one, you're fortunate.

A Random Webley...

I honestly don't remember where this one came from. It's an example, I think, of a later Mark of the pistol, going by the front sight.