Dean
Your 16 gauge was one of the guns I mentioned. The research letter you showed in another thread states that according to the order book it is a Damascus gun but according to the stock book it is an L3. I recently bought a 10 gauge that looks absolutely identical to your 16 and was made in 1880 (18479) also. It is marked D3 on the frame but Laminated Steel on the rib and the P on the flats. The research letter also confirms this. Interestingly, your gun was ordered early in the year and delivered the end of August. The one I purchased was ordered in early August and delivered a week before yours. Yet the 10 gauge has a serial number about 200 lower. In jumping around the threads for about 15 minutes I found another 4 to 5 that followed this pattern. Some of these, such as the two listed here, are outside the reported serial number range of 10000 to 16000.
I have been told by another member here that he estimates there were less than 100 of these barrels made. I don't know what this is based on, but given that there were only a little over 2000 L guns documented, this isn't unreasonable at all. From all the examples I found in just few minutes, I suspect that a number of these Parker barrels were sold on Damascus guns. maybe more than were sold as normal L grades. At the time the Parker Company was likely quite proud of them and maybe considered them better than the purchased laminate or lower grades of Damascus.
One thing I have wondered and never seen explained when the Senate Testimony story is related was what the reason was for this testimony in the first place. The way it is told always sounds like there was some federal question as to whether Parker was involved in barrel making.
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