A Unique Double With a Parker

[Researcher]

I guess back in 1926, everything about Skeet was new. This from the November 1926 issue of Hunting and Fishing --

A Unique Double From Station One, H & F Nov. 1926.jpg

[Double Lab]

They would be amazed how many times it's happened since 1926.

[Drew Hause]

Since Dave started this, here goes:

William Harnden Foster and brothers H.W. and C.D. Davies set up a course in the “chicken yard” on the grounds of the Glen Rock Kennels as practice for grouse hunting. One trap was secured to a crotched elm post and raised about four feet off the ground. It was placed at 12:00, throwing targets toward 6:00, with the shooters standing at 12 stations around a full circle with a 25-yard radius.

Courtesy of Dean



About 1923, Foster conceived "Shooting Around The Clock," and used his position as editor and chief illustrator of both National Sportsman and Hunting and Fishing magazines to promote the new shooting game. Two traps (one elevated at ten feet) were positioned at 12:00 and 6:00. The shooters walked around a semi-circle with a 20 yard radius and shot from eight stations, the last position being in the center of the 'clock.' In 1936, the National Skeet Shooters Association (NSSA) altered the layout to throw targets at a 15- degree angle to allow multiple fields to be positioned in a straight line.

A two-page spread appeared in the February 1926 issues of National Sportsman and Hunting and Fishing, announcing “A New Sport for Shotgun Shooters” and a $100 prize for the best name for the new shooting game. The May 1926 issue announced the winner, Mrs. Gertrude Hurbutt of Dayton, Montana, and the new name, "Skeet," from an old Scandinavian word for shoot.



Early scores averaged 15 broken targets out of 25, but by July the first 25x25 was recorded by H.M. Jackson of North Carolina.
Remarkably, the Ithaca NID Skeet Special was advertised in the July 1926 National Sportsman, only two months after the game was named! Was the Ithaca Gun Co. tipped off in advance of the announcement in order to accelerate production of a designated skeet gun?

The cover of the August 1926 National Sportsman by Foster was “the first painting ever published of a scene in the new sport of Skeet” and possibly depicted his son using Foster Sr.’s 20 gauge Parker DHE with 27-inch barrels



Foster also designed a logo featuring a flying quail with superimposed clay target and shot pattern



The NSSA was formed March 20, 1928 and announced in the May issues of National Sportsman and Hunting and Fishing magazines. William Harnden Foster was selected as the first president, and the name of the association and presumably the logo were proprietary to National Sportsman, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts.

Anyone have one of the Trojan Skeet guns?

[Dean Romig]

One of the Trojan Skeet guns, quite possibly the only known example, is in the custody of the Remington Arms museum. Brian Dudley wrote a Parker Pages article about it and I think it was also in DGJ.

The original Skeet field was on Davies' Glen Rock Kennels property at 73 Dascomb Road in Andover, MA about a mile from my house. To the best of my knowledge, the chicken yard and chicken coops were on the property of Davies' next-door neighbor and the buildings can be seen dimly in the background of Drew's first picture. Reportedly, the shot pellets raining down on the neighbor's chicken yard at 53 Dascomb Rd. at the corner of Durham is what prompted the change from a clock-face layout to the semi-circle currently in use.

The club in Wilmington, next town to the west of Andover, like so many other old shooting clubs in Massachusetts, is no longer in existence.





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[Researcher]

That same page as the Unique Double also had the report on the first 25 straight --

News From the Skeet Grounds, First 25 Straight, H & F Nov. 1926.jpeg

[todd allen]

The "unique double" in the OP is known as a clubhouse double, and is not that uncommon to those who do a lot of clays shooting.
I witnessed a much more unique double at a pigeon match. A shooter called for a bird, shot twice, missed twice, and the bird landed, unharmed about 5 yards behind the center box.
The shooter calls for the next bird. Both get up at the same time, and both are dispatched with the first bbl. The shooter, wisely, fired the second barrel at the correct bird.
The call: Both Xs.

[Researcher]

Remarkably, the Ithaca NID Skeet Special was advertised in the July 1926 National Sportsman, only two months after the game was named! Was the Ithaca Gun Co. tipped off in advance of the announcement in order to accelerate production of a designated skeet gun?

Interesting that they did such an ad. An actual Ithaca Skeet Gun doesn't appear in any Ithaca Gun Co. catalog or price list that I have until Catalogue No. 54, 1935.

The New Ithaca Skeet Model Field Grade,1935 Catalogue 54, page 10.jpg

Ithaca price lists don't begin separately pricing the Skeet Guns until 1937 --

Ithaca Prices - Fall 1937.jpg

For 1935 and 6 I guess you just had to add up the price of the options.

Similarly in 1935, they added a Skeet Gun to their Lefever line --

Skeet -- Spring of 1935.jpg

[Researcher]

Here is the Ithaca ad from the July 1926, National Sportsman --

The Ithaca Skeet Special July 1926 National Sportsman.jpeg

I'm guessing that a modified and full choked 20-gauge didn't prove to be a very satisfactory skeet gun!!

Savage cataloged the Fox Skeeter in 1931 --

Fox Skeeter 1931 Retail Catalogue.jpg

For 1932 and 1933 they offered a skeet version of the Trap Grade. For 1934 they offered Fox Special Skeet Grade --

Fox Special Skeet Grade.jpg

Then for 1935, they introduced the Skeet & Upland Game Guns in an SP-/SPE-Grade version --

SP Grade Skeet & Upland Game Gun 1935 retail catalogue.jpg

and a Fox-Sterlingworth version --

Fox-Sterlingworth Skeet & Upland Game Gun 1935.jpg

The Olin brothers must have gotten Winchester going on a Model 21 Skeet Gun in 1932 --

Model 21 Skeet Gun ad Jan. 1933.jpg

as this magazine ad from the January 1933 attests. The Model 21 Skeet Gun is the only one in the 1933 Winchester catalog. During 1933 the Model 12 Skeet Gun and the Model 42 Skeet Gun are introduced, and first appear in the 1934 Winchester catalog.

[Researcher]

The first Skeet Gun to appear in a Remington Arms Co., Inc. catalog is the Model 32 Skeet Gun in the March 1, 1934, catalog --

Model 32 Skeet Gun, March 1, 1934 catalog.jpeg

By the February 15, 1935, catalog the Model 31 Skeet Gun --

Model 31 Skeet Gun, Feb. 15, 1935 catalog.jpg

and the "Sportsman" Skeet Gun --

Sportsman Skeet Gun, Feb. 15, 1935 catalog.jpg

were added to the offerings. And the conventional wisdom seems to be that they introduced their Parker Skeet Gun in 1934 as well.

So, it seems that our U.S. manufacturers were actually getting on the Skeet bandwagon in the 1931 to 35 time frame.

[Researcher]

Rummaging through my files last night I discovered that Parker Bros. were actually advertising a .410-bore Skeet Gun by October 1933 --

.410-bore Skeet Gun ad October 1933, Field & Stream.jpg

.410-bore Skeet Gun, October 1933, Fireld & Stream.jpg

and Capt. Paul A. Curtis reviewed it in Field & Stream.

The Winchester Model 42 and the 3-inch .410-bore shell had been introduced and reviewed in the July 1933 issues of a number of sporting magazines.