There are many, many Parker collectors who own far more than 20 guns. I'd have a hard time faulting their direction. The expert/collector who feels 20 is an ideal number would own 100 if only he could get his hands on them.... The thing about collecting is there are few hard and fast rules.
GregSY: You are 100% right on the fact that there are no hard and fast rules about collecting. However, I simply distinguish a collection from a large accumulation of inventory.
When I wrote my first book, many of my friends tried to refer me to the storied "collectors" with 300 Parkers, but I didn't have the time or the attention span to sift through that many guns to find the ones my prospective readers wanted to see in pictures and in print. As it was, I did sift through a 60-gun collection and found 10 guns of true merit, which I photographed and featured. The collector had three A-1-Specials, one truly wonderful, one not as good, and an upgrade; I suggested that he sell the two "yes, buts..." The ten guns I zeroed in on would have stood alone as a great collection, but were obscured by too much background noise of common guns. A true collection is somewhat like a museum display...
Bill Furnish donated his collection of seminal doubles (including about 40 Parkers) to the Cody Firearms Museum. They languished in storage for a number of years and some (30) are now on display in the basement, including 7 Parkers, of which only one has any real merit as a collector's item. Thus even the seven Parkers on display are not really a "collection" if they are mostly just common guns that occupy space, but don't grab the interest of other collectors.
Meanwhile, the Coca Cola guy's two guns, long on display at Cody (including the CHE .410), grab the interest (but not because of the Coca Cola connection)...as did the PH .410 I photographed for my first book (one of three made, and the only one in original 60% CC condition). Compare the interest of the CHE and PH to the three same-old same-old Parker VH(E) .410s pictured in the current
DGJ: is this a collection or an inventory? And while it's nice to have the ownership provenance of a gun (as opposed to not having it), the fact that the president of a large real estate brokerage firm (or president of Coca Cola) owned a certain shotgun usually has little or no impact on the price (absent a name like Czar Nicholas or Annie Oakley).
Now skip forward to the next article @ p.55 and heed the author's sound advice: (1) Buy what you can afford; (2) High original condition is paramount; (3) "Partial restoration"? Maybe, but only if necessary; otherwise leave well-enough alone; and (4) Re-read #1--When it comes time to sell, high original condition guns are always in great demand. The author features four high condition guns; Trojan, VH, PH, GHE--
THIS IMHO is a "collection."! As a counterpoint, buy all 44 Parkers in Jim Julia's October 6th sale and you will have an impressive inventory of Old Reliables, but will you have a "collection"? I don't think so.
Parting shot about the idea that an expert/collector would "...own 100 if he could get his hands on them," ignores the fact that a great many collectors have plenty of $$$ to buy any size of a large inventory, but mega-bucks makes them more selective, and selectivity is the key to any good or great collection.
Gun collectors are nickle-shooters when it comes to applying loose cash to acquire collectibles. The entry level for impressionist art is $10,000,000. I get antiquarian bookseller's catalogs with prices for books by Jane Austen (who?) in excess of the Czar's Parker. What if Larry Silverstein (who?) decided to get into Parkers? He owned the Trade Towers, and his insurance settlement was $13,000,000,000 (that's billion). If he wanted to be real safe with his $$$ and put it into FDIC insured accounts, he would need to find 56,000 banks at $250,000 each. Just think of how many $100,000 Parkers he could buy! People with money are more likely to buy an $800 bottle of Mouton Rothchild '88 than 400 bottles of Rot Gut. A person with $100 burning a hole in his pocket is well advised to partake of good eats at a fine restaurant rather than blowing his wad on "meal deals" at McDonalds. Less is more! EDM
