Highest Serial Numbers - Last Guns Made?

[bpOutdoors]

What has been reported as some of the highest serial numbers among the membership? The book shows a 241788 16 Gauge D Grade as the last gun in the list. Would that gun have been kept by the family?

Just curious really - but it would be great to see that gun or anything produced near the end of the run!

bryan

[BS]

I know where a DHE 12ga., 30" vent rib gun is that is serial number 2423xx.
-Brett

[Dean Romig]

Actually, the last Parker made by Remington Arms in Ilion, NY when production was halted at the outbreak of WW II was something like 242464 or something very close in the last digit of the serial number. After the war, a few guns were assembled but it was not cost-effective so Parker Gun production was permanently terminated.





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[GH-16]

Bryan,

There are guns out there with higher serial #'s than the one you mentioned. I have owned one that was about 200 higher myself. There some Parkers in the 242000 range as well. I always try to keep in mind what was going on when the last Parkers were produced. The bombing at Pearl Harbor changed everything in the gun industry in a very short period of time. As I understand it all gun production in the US was cut over to making military arms & our beloved Parkers were victims of that cut-over and never came back after the war. I feel it's only reasonable to assume that some of the records dealing with the last Parker's produced could have been lost to the dust bin of history during those crazy times.


The other thing that comes to mind is the possibility of someone assembling guns from surplus left over parts they acquired along the way, which my account for some of the higher serial numbered guns as well. I hope others with more knowledge of the subject will chime in to correct me if I'm off base.

[Patrick Butler]

I owned a Parker DHE 20, #242,09X. Fantastic wood, as the last ones tend to have.

[Autumn Daze]

242487 is it guys

[Dean Romig]

Dave - where is that recorded so we can refer to it in the future?





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[Kevin McCormack]

The very last of the Remington Parker inventory of completed guns produced at Ilion was "frozen" at the outbreak of WW II and much of the specialized equipment used in producing the Parker Gun was similarly isolated and immobilized when the company formally initiated arms and ammunition production for the war effort, and much of the machinery declared obsolete and was scrapped for same.

Once the war was over and the company returned to sporting arms production, an evaluation of the feasibility and profitability of producing a side-by-side gun was carefully examined from a number of standpoints (existing market, market values, appeal, profit margin per individual graded guns, and other factors involved in advertising and marketing a product relative to these aforementioned essentials.

When the decision was made to not resume production of the Parker Gun, the existing inventory of completed guns on hand at Ilion when the war broke out was first offered to selected dealers and then to the employees of Remington at Ilion at modest discounts. Surprisingly, very few were purchased by the workers.

According to Ed Muderlak's "Parker Guns - The Old Reliable' the last gun built by Remington at Ilion was a GH .410 built from parts inventory in 1947. The serial number is 242387

[Pittypatdugan]

I think I have the last single barrel Trap

Serial Number 242055 , its SC

[Big D]

Kevin and Dave are 100 numbers apart. Typo?