As far as I know, the only style of Parker dogs head buttplate that is not been reproduced or available for sale is the very first style. Used on hammer guns as early as the 13,000 serials for graded guns. And then worked into the lower grade guns into maybe the 30,000 serial range. The subject example is from a 24,000 serial range transition lifter.
This plate was made in one size only and it is pretty large, comparable in size to the steel buttplates used during the same period. And the style of dogs head on it is unique to this plate. Later on different sized plates were offered for different gauges and frame sizes of guns and each had their own different style of dog on them. This early (first style) plate is close in size to the later number 3 plate used on mostly 10g. guns.
Anyway, like I said, nobody offered a reproduction of this plate. Honestly I personally have never had a gun come in where I needed to replace this style plate, so it never posed a great problem for me. But, I know that the day is coming...
I got in this 24,000 range grade 2 lifter for a bunch of work and it had a pretty darn decent condition example of this plate. One of the nicer ones that I had seen, but it needed some cleaning up, especially if I wanted to use it as a master for molding reproductions. I set to work doing all of the hand work to it to restore it to as close to new as I could. The results were pretty good. I then had the plate molded and some new reproductions made up of it.
Who knows if and when I will ever need to make sure of them, but at least I know I can when I need to.
Here are photos of the plate when I started, after restoration and then that plate next to a new reproduction of it.
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