Back in 1970 a law school buddy and myself and our wives met at his father-in-law's house in Rockford IL for a day of pheasant hunting. He went to the gun safe and pulled out a Boss to use, and when he put it in the trunk of my new Mustang I knew it was worth more than my car. I got my two birds with my Rem. Mod. 11, but the idea of a fine side by side stuck and later led to my love affair with Parkers as collectible shooters, and also as topics of my literary ruminations.
A few years ago, having mentioned this Boss in one of my books, I got a call from Agustus Pabst III (sicon of the brewery family) who told of being at the auction in 1947 when the Maharajah's matched set sold. He bought the other one, and recently it sold again in one of James Julia's auctions bringing about $45,000; meanwhile, the Czar's Parker brought $287,500. As to what's THE "best" gun can be rather subjective and a never-ending topic. As I recall, my friend with the Boss got zero pheasants and ground swatted one bunny. My Mod. 11 was the "best" gun that day.
We shouldn't expect the Brits to do a worldwide search for the gun that exceeds all others (the Parker, IMHO), and it's easy to fall back on several centuries of anglo-centric writings about James Purdey et al. Actually I have dedicated a couple chapters in my new book--Parker Guns: Shooting Flying and the American Experience (Collector Books, Paducha KY 2008--to this very topic: for example, "Apple Pie vrs Spotted Dick" (which any anglophile knows is a dessert), wherein I discuss how Parker Brothers adopted the Purdey back-action template in 1868 for a tipping breechloader rather than one of the "Rube Goldberg" deviations like Ethan Allen's lid-opener, the Boyd & Tyler twist-opener or the Original Fox side-opener.
Other successful American makers who followed Parker also adopted the Lefaucheux/Purdey/Westley Richards/Parker tiping-breechloader geometry and were supreme, each in their own way, till Spencer figured out the slide action and Browning came up with his Auto 5/Mod. 11. We SxS people have since been lost in nostalgia oand preoccupied with touting form over function.
As to form, I guess I would take the Dickson Round action original, or as produced by McKay Brown--Lewis Drake has been cartng around matched pairs of both. They seem a little dinky when compared to the same gauge Parkers, but they sure please the eye. Maybe in my next and hopefully more prosperous lifetime...alas! EDM
