doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com All Original Parker?? Hmmmm.....

I was just reading the Parker article in the latest issue of The Double Gun Journal. The 28-gauge with all the gold on pages 92 and 93 looked familiar. Found it on pages 88 and 89 of Baer's Volume II with a rather poor restock, yet here in The Double Gun Journal were told it is "an all-original Parker"!!!!

Am I right on this assessment?

Where did Baer get his information? I don't know who to believe, Baer or Mr. Chadick. I have looked at both stocks that you refer to on that gun and (assuming they share the same serial number) they are not the same stock. Further (and I will go out on the proverbial limb and say) it is my opinion, however humble it may be, that the stock on the gold inlaid 28ga. A1S also shown on page 85 of the DGJ is a restock, presuming the gun was manufactured prior to the move to Ilion NY because the "nose of the comb" is characteristically "Remington."

Well, you hear a lot of BS in life and the DGJ is no exception.

First, they made small mistake in listing the order of guns - they say the order is top to bottom when it is bottom to top.

Next, they print one of the most hilarious, and erroneous statements I've ever read in calling Herschel "the man most responsible for resurrecting the Parker name to collectibility".
If that's true, Jesse Jackson must be the man most responsible for making religion popular. I can't think of anyone alive who has done anything to make Parkers what they are.

I saw that 28/.410 A-1 at the Tulsa show a couple years ago. As with other magazine articles on the gun, they don't talk about the white elephant standing in the corner - the gun has a really screwy stock that was cut short and had a spacer added in. It doesn't make the gun worthless, but you think they'd mention it. I also can't rate the gun to be in "excellent" shape, as Herschel does, both because of the stock and the overall 'hue' the gun has.

Maybe Herschel is getting ready to sell off his guns and is looking to fluff them up a bit.

Chadick has been selling off for a long time - maybe 2 years or more. His store has no more Parkers for sale, except one repro.

Doesn't he deserve a bit of DGJ fluff as a swan song? I think so. He made a living and created a good name for himself because of his eye for Parkers. The two guns I bought from him were very happy transactions. He's one of the good guys IMO, and for us non-expert types, a Parker trolling included a visit to Chadicks table, shop or website.

. . . and, I might add that, upon closer inspection of the pictures in both publications, it appears that a screw or two may have been replaced. With all the money spent on that gun to pretty it up why was the hinge pin never properly aligned?
Mr. Fleischman apparantly had a penchant for gold inlay on his Parkers. Look also at the 20 ga. two barrel set A1S 231774 on page 192 of the James D. Julia auction catalog for October 6, 2005. Same gold flowers on the trigger guard, very similar row of gold flowers forward of the trigger plate, gold floral bouquet on the trigger plate but has gold ducks and pheasants on the sides of the frame. But, of course if you're Max Fleischman, why not gold??

Anybody know who "S.S. BUCK WHEELER" was??

BTW, Baer says "the mate to this gun was a 20 ga. It was hidiously ruined by an attempt to add gold inlays to the original engraving, and even worse was an attempt to remove the inlays and re-engrave the sides of the action. The result was the ruination of a very precious original A-1 20 ga. gun."

Might that have been the one in the Julia's catalog of Oct. 6,'05
????

DAM16,
Check this citation for Buck Wheeler. It includes a lot of references to Max F.

Thanks Yeti. I should have made the connection. . . duh.
I have the book "Gentleman in the Outdoors, A Portrait of Max C. Fleischman" by Sessions S. Wheeler and have read it twice. A good read and gives insight to both the author and Fleischman.

Thanks again.
Dean

Dean,
I've kidded about gents here having "forgotten more than I ever knew". It's now documented.
Brent

"Doesn't he deserve a bit of DGJ fluff as a swan song? I think so. He made a living and created a good name for himself because of his eye for Parkers. The two guns I bought from him were very happy transactions. He's one of the good guys IMO, and for us non-expert types, a Parker trolling included a visit to Chadicks table, shop or website. "

IMO, no he doesn't deserve any fluffing. First, fluffing misleads readers and adds to the general database of misinformation that will exist for years to come. Second, all HC is/was is a gun dealer. There's nothing noble in that. I'd suspect like most dealers he's responsible for many of the guns we see with chokes, stock dimensions, buttplates, sights, and barrel lengths that no longer match factory letters.

You don't see the vintage Ferrari crowd worshiping used car dealers. You don't see Monet collectors worshiping art dealers. So why does the gun world worship gun dealers?