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Dean Romig
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Posted: Thu Oct 13th, 2005 09:24 pm |
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Alan, I think that is just magnificent and entirely appropriate. Even in the days of the original A1S Parkers the buyer had the last word on options and engraving style, within tasteful standards of course. Heck, check out the pin-up girls on the walls of the engraving room... you just know what they would like to have been engraving on those wonderful old Parkers.
Dean
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Alan Webber
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Posted: Thu Oct 13th, 2005 10:05 pm |
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Dean,
I saw a nice Italian side by side with a beautiful babe laying on her side across the receiver in Bulino style. Maybe someone ought to do a 21st century A1 like that. How about the next raffle gun?
If I had been buying an A-1 in the old days I think I would have stopped by Meriden and ordered up a lot of special engraving. You really don't see it as much as you would expect on a custom gun. It would ahve been a lot of fun.
Alan
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Alan Webber
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Posted: Thu Oct 13th, 2005 10:40 pm |
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Bruce,
I agree that reproductions ought to have some license for change. I'd like to take my d grade 28 repro, rub out all the laser cut engraving and do it over.
I'm having Turnbull redo a #6 frame d grade hammer gun for me. Instead of recutting the "Parker chickens" on the bottom of the receiver I'm having a big Speckled goose put on it. It may not be original but that's what the gun was built to shoot and that's what ought to be on the receiver.
Here's another one Gamradt did on his own on the A-1. It's an old Winslow Homer picture that you see obviously only when you work the top lever. He said it was a hole that needed to be filled. The hunter on the trigger guard even has the right lead on the pheasant. I knew he was going to do the pheasant but I didn't know about the hunter or the ducks. Leave the artist alone and it will usually come out very nice.
Alan
 
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Don Kaas
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Posted: Fri Oct 14th, 2005 05:02 pm |
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| With all the #6 frame D grade hammerguns piled up in every corner, it takes a brave man to "improve" the factory engraving on one. While its a pity Parker didn't engrave such scenes as stunning as Homer's "A Right and a Left" on their guns, there is a certain charm to the original primitive scenes and figures the Parker "notables" did use much like their contemporaries Kell and Sumner in London. Nevertheless, I hope the speck is atleast in gold bas relief to make for the maximum improvement...BTW, the "interacting" driven shooter and pheasant combination has been used on a few custom engraved British guns in the past decade or two...
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Destry Hoffard
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Posted: Sat Oct 15th, 2005 09:11 am |
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That's my favorite Winslow Homer painting actually, it's called "Right and Left". Saw it this summer on display at the National Gallery in DC.
Destry
____________________
The member formerly known as Market Hunter
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Don Kaas
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Posted: Sat Oct 15th, 2005 06:29 pm |
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| Correct, Prof. Hoffard, no articles just "Right and Left", painted in 1909 a year before Homer's death. One of his greatest works, a pity he didn't do more waterfowling paintings. Without Homer's huge rolling waves to give context and perspective the two ducks on the gun just look like, well, two ducks... Last edited on Sat Oct 15th, 2005 06:33 pm by Don Kaas
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Alan Webber
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Posted: Sat Oct 15th, 2005 07:53 pm |
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You all educated me. I was not aware Winslow Homer did many pictures like "right and left". I always thought of Homer as a painter of marine scenes. I would say if I had had a choice I probably would have looked at a Roland Clark etching but the engraver of course knows more that me and in the end he was right.
On the #6 frame hammer gun the spec will not be gold and I still have plenty of the Parker chickens to look at on other d grades. This hammer gun was so wrecked when I got it that I almost sent it back.The skeleton butt was as thin as tin foil and Turnbull found another # 6 skeleton casting in a gun shop in Syracuse. I don't know how he does it. It also needed a new foreend and the bottom of the receiver was pitted pretty badly. Everything needs chasing. But it was such a great frame I couldn't resist having it rehabbed. I suppose in the old days you could have probably special ordered on a D a goose on the bottom and Parker would have done it. It's nice to see what should have been a wall hanger brought back on line. Parkers are so stout they all rehab. pretty well.
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Don Kaas
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Posted: Sat Oct 15th, 2005 08:14 pm |
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| I am sure it is going to be lovely when its done, Alan. Congratulations on putting your $ where your mouth is and resurrecting a gun many would have shied away from. I have a number of D grades including some hammers but my 10g is, alas, a mere #4 frame Grade 2. These are the guns that made Parker famous. Last edited on Sat Oct 15th, 2005 08:16 pm by Don Kaas
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Alan Webber
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Posted: Sat Oct 15th, 2005 08:38 pm |
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Don,
I hope I'm not throwing $ down a hole. I don't think I am because , though redone they are really beautiful and I would think they would retain their value.
# 4's are pretty rare I understand and they are probably the most reasonable large frame Parker. #6's, though impressive by their size, can wear a guy out. 10's are a lot of fun to shoot. I'm doing it more and more with black powder. It's amazing how an 1.25 oz black powder load will stone a pheasant or a mallard.
Alan
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Don Kaas
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Posted: Sat Oct 15th, 2005 08:58 pm |
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| Well, having thrown lots of money down that same hole, I think I am qualified to observe that custom guns especially old American shotguns rarely resell for what the original commissioner has spent on the project. I prefer to look at as what it is-a hobby. Hobbies cost money. If I do 3 to 5 projects a year and when bored with them I sell them and I put, say, $3K in that proverbial hole, well, that was the cost of doing something I like to do.
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Alan Webber
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Posted: Sat Oct 15th, 2005 10:47 pm |
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| Well said. One doesn't buy art because it's necessarily going to appreciate, one buys it because they like it.
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Sam Ogle
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Posted: Sat Oct 22nd, 2005 04:33 pm |
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Destry,
I found an about 8"X12" poster of the "Right and Left" at a garage sale the other day and made it mine for fifty cents. I'm going to frame it, as there is just something about that particular Winslow Homer that speaks volumes to a duck hunter.
Sam Ogle
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Alan Webber
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Posted: Thu Oct 27th, 2005 10:08 pm |
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| For me it's that right hand bird going "toes up". That's duck hunting at its best.
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gournet
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Posted: Fri Dec 1st, 2006 02:45 am |
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Hello
I engraved the "A1 custom", a total of 80 , maybe 120 over 16 years at Parker repro.I signed all of them. The first ones took about a month, the last one closed to 5 months. Very few were done as copy of the original style. At this price Parker Repro was in competition with modern guns with an italian execution of the engraving. So I was here to do bulino. So the idea was to bring the new Parker on a new market with a new execution but still a similar style. I hope you understand what I try to explain. At the time, the Parker customer were seing a Parker, not a gun in the white and the idea of customisation on a Parker was leaded with orthodoxy.
The A1custom came finished in the white. The finished was usually grey because it do not diminish the bulino, with a few caseclored were done in the USA.
I help to finish maybe 20 B grade, after the closing of the plan in Japan, some have been done with another bird on the floor plate. I did not sign.
I may have upgraded very few special order as Crazy Man.
Some lower grade were partly engraved on the flat surface with the technique"roll-pressed", as the D.
I still have a complete diary of these years for further research. I do not have the time now.
Thank you for your interest.
geoffroy
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Louis Rotelli
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Posted: Fri Dec 1st, 2006 12:04 pm |
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Alan,
Excellent engraving. I would only suggest that you consider a french grey finish instead of case coloring which will detract from the beautiful engraving you have there. Lou
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Kevin McCormack
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Posted: Fri Dec 1st, 2006 01:09 pm |
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Don Kaas wrote: I am sure it is going to be lovely when its done, Alan. Congratulations on putting your $ where your mouth is and resurrecting a gun many would have shied away from. I have a number of D grades including some hammers but my 10g is, alas, a mere #4 frame Grade 2. These are the guns that made Parker famous. No they're not! - it was those 32" 0-frame 28 gauges and the CHE .410s - all 12 of them! BTW - will I see your smiling face at the P-man's table tomorrow morning at Allentown? KBM
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Don Kaas
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Posted: Fri Dec 1st, 2006 01:22 pm |
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| No, mon ami, Ladies Day at the PGC. I am 'member in charge' tomorrow and Madame K has made some lovely pate' de carnard sauvage for cocktail time. Any chance of getting you up this season?
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Kevin McCormack
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Posted: Fri Dec 1st, 2006 01:58 pm |
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Don Kaas wrote: No, mon ami, Ladies Day at the PGC. I am 'member in charge' tomorrow and Madame K has made some lovely pate' de carnard sauvage for cocktail time. Any chance of getting you up this season?
I would say the chances are excellent if not inevitable - I am way overdue for a visit to Wallingford and lunch at the Sansom Street Oyster House in the Old City! Accordingly, a dedicated day at PGC is mandatory for me this year, following last year's debacle in scheduling. PM me the dates and I'll commit.
Speaking of 'Pate' de canard sauvage', while cruising the wine section at Maison de Costco Wed. nite, I discovered to my delight that they have moved into the connoisseur's age - Chateau Pavie 1993 at $299 a bottle, in the faux wooden bin right next to the 1996 Chateau Mouton- Rothschild at $339 a pop! (The Mon. seated on the label looks like Destry with muttonchops!). Time to start dumping those brown hardware store guns and up my Joie d'Vie! BTW - what time are cocktails tomorrow? I could swing by on my way down from A-town and sign some spent cartridge cases for my fans with my new InDel pocket marker.
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B.P.Lasley
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Posted: Fri Dec 1st, 2006 01:59 pm |
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I believe the ducks in the original Homer "Right and Left" are Goldeneyes. Great painting. I am counting the days until I can take my 12/28" DH 1 1/2 frame out and take some fowl with the 2 1/2" Kent Tungsten Impact Loads. I have never used them, but I hear they are the ticket with old doubles.
"God help the man who duck hunts his whole life without ever realizing it's not the ducks he's hunting for..."
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Don Kaas
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Posted: Fri Dec 1st, 2006 03:15 pm |
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Will send dates, Kevin. 12:45 to 1:00ish for your autograph signing, cigar and single malt, I'll tell everyone to bring their old cases...
B.P.- Good choice...I was down in the gun room this morning searching for the best tool for my Mississippi ducking trip next week. I have tenatively settled on a 1902 12g DH originally delivered to New London, Conn. 1 1/2 frame, 7 lbs 1 oz, straight grip and skeleton buttplate with its' 1941 set of 28" Ilion fitted 2 3/4" barrels. It should be fine for "dem gray ducks" in the cypresses. I would use its original Damascus barrels but they are being redone by Dale Edmonds at the moment...
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