Early 28 Gauge Production

[Jean Swanson]

I am not getting into the negotiations with the authors & the PGCA, that is a topic by itself. Bill is correct, in that Roy Gunther copied the STOCK books, basically, by himself, he also scanned the ORDER books for guns of a grade GREATER than D's and copied that info by hand; therefore, ignoring grades less than grade 3. A group of PGCA members obtained permission from then plant manager, Sam Renzey(sp) to enter Remington Arms in Ilion to copy the order books & IBM cards.
So, when the authors obtained permission from Remington to have the Parker Gun Identification & Serialization book published by Fjestad, the data base info that had been gathered by Gunther was used as a base for the publication.

That is why the LOWER grade guns (that are in the Fjestad book) of less than grade 3, from the ORDER books are missing .

I hope this finally answers the question !!!!

Allan



ially answers the question

[Bill Mullins]

What Bill and Allan said is correct. To add to that…
A bit of background…. When Cdr. Gunther copied the Order Books ( one at a time as Remington only allowed one book to be taken out of fear of being lost) he copied only grade 3 and above guns as the TPS authors assumed collectors were primarily interested in the higher grades. Parker did not record their guns by grade but by dollar amount.
For example:
D grade guns were $100 guns
C grade guns were $150 guns
B grade guns were $200 guns
A grade guns were $300 guns
AA grade guns were $400 guns
A1 Special guns were $500 or above guns

Occasionally when sales or the economy were slow Parker would lower the price of the guns to motivate potential buyers. For example a customer might be able to buy an A1S for $400.

When Gunther went through the Order Books he always “assumed” for example a $400 gun was an AA gun and etc.
The Order Books were kept only up to 1920. Thereafter gun records were maintained on IBM cards. These cards recorded the grade, serial number, gauge,
date of manufacture and to whom shipped…. which usually was the wholesaler or retailer.

As with the Stock and Order books several IBM cards were missing and or damaged beyond legibility.

When the late Charlie Price built a data base he statistically accounted for the missing records and guns and added accordingly based upon the books that were available.

Hope this helps and might clear up some confusion.

Bill 🇺🇸

[Bill Mullins]

PS…. Cdr. Gunther drove from Averill Park NY to Illion NY every day for one month to copy the records. He would copy all day and actually “burned” up one of Remington’s copy machines! They instructed him to bring his own copier in the future. Ron Kirby, then Executive Director of the PGCA had a son who sold copying machines and gracefully supplied one for the remaining coping necessary!
👍🤗

[Jean Swanson]

Bill

Thanks for the DETAILED data of the transaction, I did not want go into the details. I knew you would & thanks

Allan

[edgarspencer]

Are there any plans to ask Roundhill LLC for access to the books in an effort to fill in the blanks on guns below grade 3? This group of guns makes up a significant number of additions to new, entry level collectors, and could be a significant source of new research letter revenue.

[Pa SxS]

Edgar, there is no need to review the Order Books. This assumes all the Order Books were copied that Remington has and that the PGCA has all of these copies. What would be needed is someone to go through each Order Book order for guns grade 0,1, and 2 and see if the gun is in the Serialization Book (made from the Stock Books). If it's not found in the Serialization Book, it could be included in a new Serialization Book revised edition. I don't think the authors of TPS own that database but I could be wrong. It's not a job I would want.