There are not a lot of NIB field grade anything. It is his gun and his value to loose but it is a bit more then 'his'. IMHO, it is a national treasure(assuming it is in untouched as it left the factory) and needs to remain that way.
I sold a "national treasure" about two years ago. It was--and I hope still is--NIB with box with label, hang tags, and barrels still wrapped in cardboard packing, just as it left the factory in 1927. Don Criswell, a top-end gun dealer who specialized in collecting unfired Parkers, once told me he had never seen a NIB Trojan, and he said my gun was one of a kind.
High condition and unfired "knockabouts" tend to be rare because they were knocked about and weren't valued like the higher grades when new. I sold this $27.50 when-new gun for $7,500.00, a record price for a Trojan 12-bore. The new owner bought it strictly as an investment, and flipped it on Jim Julia's auction last October for $9,000 plus 15% juice, or $10,350.00...
FOR A TROJAN! Meanwhile, I thought last fall that I might be be wise to invest in Crocks Rubber shoes (CROX on the ticker) because the pundits on Wall Street thought it was under priced at about $75.00 per share, and my grand kids wouldn't wear anything else. But I don't play the markets...and now a year later CROX is hovering around $3.00. And the Dow has tanked from 14,000+ to in the 8,000s. Parker guns are looking pretty good right now as a store of wealth. I personally do not consider fine shotguns as "investment grade," but they do tend to hold their value if well thought, well bought, and well cared for. This includes separating the wheat from the chaff: The shooters from the collector's items. A NIB or unfired pre-WWII shotgun is a collector's item.
After selling the Trojan 12-bore for $7.500.00 as a collector's item I effectively bought it back as a shooter for $850.00 at the Vintage Cup last year. A dealer had a similar Trojan 28-inch M&F with original butt plate, original varnish, and hardly ever shot...but it had been a "closet gun" that got rusty. The barrels were refinished too black for an original Parker, and the action had some pitting on the bolsters; the case colors were removed when the rust was cleaned up, but inside it was close to new, hardly ever fired.
My son now has an almost unfired 1920s Trojan that suits him as much as a shooter as if I had given him the NIB Trojan to trap and bird shoot. There is no moral to this story. When I owned the NIB Trojan it was mine to toss the box and packaging if I wanted, and I could have used and even abused it...but to what end? I owned it and passed it on, got a good price, and have a story to tell. If the story were that I tossed the box and reduced the 100% case colors to, say, 50% through hard use, I think the consensus here would be that I was not too smart. But selling a $7,500 Trojan and buying one back for %850 and not investing the "profits" in CROX...
Well, those who think firing a NIB or unfired collector gun is a good idea should tell their success stories rather than pile opinion ("I would do it") upon conjecture ("if I had such a gun") upon platitude ("guns are made to be used"). Let us not forget that the opinions posted on this Forum are mostly worth what we pay for access. And a caveat: When expressing my opinions above, I mean NIB and unfired guns in 98%+ condition. I have always recommended buying shooters in high-original and close-to-new condition (say, 50% to 90% case colors), when possible. Guns advertised as "New by DelGrego" or "New by Turnbull" are, for the most part, no more new than a beat-out high-mileage car that has been to MAACO for a paint job. Other people think otherwise, and it's their money. EDM
