doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Burt's Parker

This thread is a prime example of Internet spam, or in 19th century words of Henry David Thoreau, "beating on the branches rather than going for the root."

Assuming someone/anyone got it right, Ten-Grand-plus for a common VH 20-bore is a lot of money for name association. This "prior-owner-provenance" increment has not been much of a factor in Parker shotguns until of late. High grade Parkers have always been assumed to have been owned by "somebody worthy," and I don't believe the fact that a certain A-1-S was owned by Max Fleischman, for example, added anything to the price or value. I mean, who's gonna brag: "Look at this gun! It's got mayonnaise all over it!"

Larry Baer dropped some names, like Joan Bennett (Joan Who?), but does anyone really care that the pristine DHE at p.73 has name association with a deceased actress? The bore size plus grade plus stated "mint condition" with "all the options" controls the value and consequent price.

Then there was Clark Gable's CHE of a decade ago, so over-valued that it couldn't get a bid. People who would pay big bucks for Clark's Jockey Shorts weren't interested in expensive guns, and people who wanted the inherantly expensive C-grade didn't want to pay even more for name association. Thus we discover a common ground where name association plays a role in value:

Annie Oakley's G-grade that I wrote of for SSM, and which is featured as a chapter in my new book, is a prime example of a gun that would go high based on name alone, the condition being NRA "bad-to-worse." The people who pay five-figures for AO memobrilia, like signed cabinet cards, would bid up this gun, should it ever reach the market. The ownership provenance--chain of eidence--is bullet proof. Thus I can envision common Parkers with well-documented ownership provenance getting a boost by Research letters naming persons who matter to gun collectors.

The first instance I recall of a famous name adding value to a common gun was at Julia's October 2005 sale of Jim Parker's Parkers. A refinished ca.1878 G-grade 16-bore was slated to bring $1,500 but skyrocketed to about $3,800 on four phone bids (after I gave it up at $2,000). There was a PGCA Research letter naming Ira Anson Paine as the first owner. Paine was the American wing-shot champion who Capt. Bogardus shot out for the title in 1871, and popularized glass target ball shooting in the mid-1870s at his gallery in New York. The phone bidders couldn't have known that this gun had Parker-made Laminated barrels, so the high price was, IMHO, strictly name-association-increment.

Then Jim Julia auctioned off an A-1-S that was all "name association and story-well-told." The "Czar's Gun" (that may or may not have been ordered by, or as a gift for the Czar of Russia), never left the shipping dock in NYC. Take away the Czar-association, and I don't believe it would have brought fifty grand on its own merits of condition and originality, which in conjunction with high-grade scarcity (about 80 made) plus bore-size and special features are usually the all-important elements of price. Whether the Czar's Gun hearalds a next generation of name-association increment, or whether the Czar's Gun is a one-shot anomaly remains to be seen.

I believe the name associated with the subject VH is relatively thin provenance, and then only of incremental value to a few fans, yet it takes but two seriously interested bidders to run up a common gun. And at the Ten Grand Mark, the only out-of-sorts aspect leading one to conclude that the gun had association increment is the condition. A dealer at the Vintage Cup had a extremely-high-condition VHE 26-inch, 20-bore Skeet Gun priced at $17,000, and I sold a similiar (perhaps slightly higher condition) VHE 26-inch, 20-bore Skeet for $14,000 two years ago.

In the final analysis, we will never know how much the name added to the price, but, seemingly, the precedents set of late, lead me to believe that gun-associated names are starting to matter, and PGCA Research Letters naming names may well be worth the price. Investigation Continues. EDM

Larry is correct; I heard from Vicki, Bill's wife, a few weeks ago, and he is so far doing well. I'm sure all here wish him the best.

As Ed suggests, added value because of provenance is easily brought into the battle by only two bidders. True value in the long haul is not neccesarily determined by the first auction price of a given gun. The next time Tapply's gun is sold, it may not match the first sale price. However, the present owner will probably not give a darn. He has owned Bill Tapply's gun for a certain period of time and the next owner will do the same.

I know that I never would have paid anywhare near that price.

Tim

I wouldn't doubt that whoever bought the gun did so in part to help Tapply....he didn't mind paying 'too much' because he knew the proceeds would go to a good cause.

Kinda like when I paid $50,000 for a lousy Chicken Parmegan dinner at the Obama fundraiser....

Agreed Bill. And GregSY and I are on the same page about the motives of the two highest bidders.
However, the PGCA Research Letter does not connect the gun with Spiller. The thing that does, however, is the letter from Bill Tapply (Included with the gun, the LOM case and the book in which first appeared the story "Burt's Gun")which states that it is indeed the Parker that was once owned by Spiller and passed along to young Bill. Bill told me a couple of years ago that he believes he heard from either his Dad, "Tap" or from Burt Spiller himself that Gorham Cross "Grampa Grouse" procured the gun for Spiller.

Better than old Fuzzy Zoeller telling Eldrick "Tiger" Woods after winning his first Masters at the hallowed Augusta National-"we'll have to tell the kitchen staff to get fried chicken and watermelon on the menu tonight". Better is the story about the rich Texan (any other kind) who bought Willie Nelson's battered old Martin guitar "Signature" at the IRS auction, after Willie's CPA FUBARED his returns- he paid $100,000 for that beat-up old Martin, then sold it right back to Old Willie for a buck-said he just wanted to hold Willie's guitar once, and had the dinero to pay for it- guess he was one of the "All Hat-All Cattle Too Texans"-- RWTF

Not funny:

Better than old Fuzzy Zoeller telling Eldrick "Tiger" Woods after winning his first Masters at the hallowed Augusta National-"we'll have to tell the kitchen staff to get fried chicken and watermelon on the menu tonight".

If true, Zoeller is an idiot.

OWD

Zoeller is an idiot.

But he is also another victim of political correctness. Tiger claimed to not be offended, but Fuzzy got hammered anyway.

Not to defend Fuzzy but that's not exactly what happened. The current Masters Champion traditionally chooses the menu for the next years champions dinner before the tournament. Fuzzy made an offhand joke "in poor taste" about fried chicken being on the menu the next year when Tiger won. He apologized and was still skewered in the media but Tiger was a gentleman and accepted his apology.

Glenn