Invincible 233565

[Mike Franzen]

I was wondering who's initials L H belong to this gun?

[Bill Murphy]

I believe more than one article addressed the details of this gun. Kevin McCormack wrote one of them, as I recall. The gun manager at Butterfield's may have written the other. However, Larry Hagman comes to mind.

[Mike Franzen]

It seemed the quality of the engraving of the initials didn't match the rest of the gun.

[Bill Murphy]

Roger Lake is one of the people who wrote an article. I can't find it. By the way, the initials are not LH and Larry Hagman never owned it. The initials are HL and the owner was Dr. Henry Lyman.

[Robin Lewis]

Roger's article "The Lost Parker Invincible" is in Volume 8, issue 6 of Parker Pages dated Nov/Dec 2001.

[Mike Franzen]

sdrawkcab ti daer I lliB, yrroS

[edgarspencer]

I got a great education on two of the (supossed) three Invincibles Thursday night, over dinner with Gary and Deni Herman. He had loads of pictures and articles, current at the time he owned one of them. Some of them seem to disprove other 'information' out there.
Interestingly, 230329 was the only one marked with a 9 on the water table.
233565, the one monogrammed HL was subsequently sold to a man in Cheshire CT, 'Moose' Herrant. Gary could remember what 'Moose's real name was.
At the time Gary bought 230329 from the Ford estate, it was not the most valuable gun he had gone to buy. Unfortunately, when they went to retrieve it, Luger Sn. 1, prototype .45ACP, went missing.
Dave believes Henry Lyman was of the Lyman's who owned the orchards, cousins to Charley Lyman, also in Middlefield, who owned the gunsight company. Interestingly, a Dr. Henry Lyman, Yale University, 1928, lived right around the corner from my family, and Henry was the Senior Warden of Old St. Andrews Episcopal church. It would shikle the tits out of me to think that gun may have been that close to me, Though probably not as much as Gary, who owned it for a while.

[Mike Franzen]

Those mysterious guns are fascinating. I was struck by how relatively crude the initials H L appeared to be engraved. I think I could have done as good a job. It's no big deal, I just thought it stood out as unusual.

[Bill Murphy]

Edgar, I'm not sure about 233,565, but Moose Herrant owned 200,000 when he lived up the road from me in Maryland. Gary may have gotten his guns and addresses turned around. When Moose died and his widow gave the 200,000 gun to its next owner, 233,565 was still buried deep. I'm not correcting my friend, Gary. He has more gun knowledge in his little finger than I will ever have in my whole body. I'm just telling what I think I know.

[edgarspencer]

Bill, that sounded so emphatic, I seriously questioned whether I had gotten my facts correctly, even though neither Deni, nor Gary and I were drinking.
So doubtfull of my retention of information, I just called him and questioned him based upon what you just said.
He indicated that he never saw 200,000, and If Moose owned it, he couldn't say, nor did he know whether Moose lived in Maryland AFTER Cheshire CT, but he most assuredly says is that he and Deni WENT to Moose's house IN Cheshire CT at Mr. Herrant's request, and he handed him 233565.
Gary sold 230329 to Larry DelGrego, who, he thinks, sold it to Mr. Donne(SP?) in Chicago.
We all age at the same rate, but in my 40+ years of friendship with Gary, I've learned one thing regarding him; He is a steel trap for info, and is rarely wrong.

[edgarspencer]

None of this precludes the possibility he didn't own both.

[Bill Murphy]

Mr. Del Grego didn't need to go to Chicago to sell 230,329, he sold it in his own back yard as far as I am aware. I can't remember the year 233,565 was discovered, but Moose was dead by then. How about we quit this discussion and you post the bibliography on the Invincibles that Gary suggested. I would like to think there is a piece of the puzzle that I don't have.

[edgarspencer]

I've already posted what Gary told me. If that doesn't jibe with your history, I'd suggest you discuss it with him at the southern. I don't know what I need to quit as I'm merely repeating what he told me last week and today.

[Bill Murphy]

I sure would like to be up to date. I'm going to start by reading the Parker Pages articles. The first thing I was reminded of was that 233,565 "came out" earlier than I thought it did if Roger's article is factual. I'll search for Dietrich Apel's article next.

[edgarspencer]

Twice you made reference to the gun being "discovered" but I'll be dipped in stink if I can figure out what event takes place for a gun to be "discovered". Is it like The Big Bang theory? One day it isn't and something cataclysmic happens?
I sort of figured when it was bought from Parker, there it is. You indicated the gun was made for Henry Lyman and that made sense, as he lived one town away from Meriden, The Lyman family being perhaps one of the most influential families in CT. it doesn't seem so far fetched that he might sell it to a friend in the very next town, also one town away from Meriden. Gary said he went to Cheshire, without the prior knowledge that the original owner was from Middlefield. I'll bet Lyman and Herrant knew each other for years and probably shot together, fished together and whatever else two old farts do together. So, if all this happened between pals, the gun has yet to be "discovered"? I've several guns my dad bought new, including a Parker. His DHE 20 is still in the family. I guess they have yet to be discovered,even though I swear I took the 16 grouse hunting last fall. Huh, go figure.

[Bill Murphy]

Good points, Edgar.