If I can add a couple of corollary comments. What Mr. Dudley writes about pricing high and gradually lowering the price until someone bites creates another problem. A person with less experience sees on line offerings and doesn't realize that a high percentage of listings going unsold week after week or even months is NOT a realistic way to know what a condition X gun's true market value really is. This lends to even more over priced listings from inexperienced sellers. Unsold doesn't help a seller and hurts us buyers.
Next, I lean toward Edgar's points that lack of collector grade authenticity isn't anywhere close to making a Parker not a Parker. My sense is a restoration done by a name brand entity can come darn close to what the same gun's true value if in original shape. And a beat up specimen brought back to shootability with an ooh-aah look may not be collector pure, but it sure does increase a gun's desirability vs. a lower condition gun. For example, I'm eyeing a 16 with a 1 frame VH offered for a great price. Nicely refinished, the ooh-aah is present and to me it is very worth the low price knowing full well 3/4" was trimmed from the original 28" barrels since it delivers skt/IC chokes that I want the gun to have anyway. Not going to pass under the theory it ain't mint original.
A third comment is over a VH the local shop just took in. The shop owner showed me the gun claiming it is mint original. I told him he was wrong, the gun was too good to be true. An old Parker dating to 1900 that perfect unfired looking would have had to be wrapped up and stored in a dark and humidity controlled enclosure for 120 years. I tried to be nice while explaining that otherwise the case colors would show at least SOME fading, and on this gun case colors didn't look typical Parker anyway...just a smidge too brightly colored with a LOT of smaller multi-color swirls and dramatic color changes rather than a more blended subtle color change transition. Been awhile since seeing a fresh del-grego, but said even if it is such a re-do could be worth the $3000 asking price regardless. Don't think the shop owner likes me as much now (grin)
Rick
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