A 200.00 or grade 5 gun

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Thought I would share these photos of this 200.00 grade gun, 10 gauge 32" full&full, Letter says shipped to T Carter Salt Lake City Utah 1879, Gary

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

More Photos

[Jay Gardner]

WOW!!!!!!

[David Dwyer]

Gary
Are you sure that is a $200 gun. A full teardrop on the bolster usually indicated a $250 grade?

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Yea David I have a letter, gun cost 200.00

[Bill Murphy]

Is that the gun that Kevin McCormack once owned and wrote a DGJ article about? As I recall, his gun was a Carter gun. The serial number rings a bit of a bell.

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Bill, Serial # 13565 do not know if it is the same gun, according to the letter by Mark the gun was returned for credit by T Carter, and was sold again to Nelson Soule Paducah KY in 1881, was returned by Nelson in 1885 to have barrels rebrowned @ 5.00 Gary

[Bill Murphy]

I think it is Kevin's old gun. Look for the DGJ article.

[Dean Romig]

Gary, that is a beautiful gun.

Sometimes the dollar amount that a Parker was sold at represents a discount and th gun may be a higher grade than the sell price may indicate. That is one of the difficulties of assigning a grade to a particular gun. The size and shape of the 'teardrop' on the bolster is also misleading at times. Grade 5 and Grade 6 teardrops are both full length but the Grade 6 teardrops are usually more bulbous than the Grade 5. But then, the Grade 6 or $250 Grade was introduced later than the Grade 5 or $200 Grade so that must also be taken into consideration.

The teardrop and lack of engraving in the vacancies around the teardrop of Gary's gun appear to be more indicative of the $200 Grade.

[Kevin McCormack]

Yes, I once owned this gun. As Bill suggests, save yourselves a lot of wind and smoke and read my article (DGJ Vol. 13, Issue 2, Summer 2003). The gun is a Grade 5 ($225 Grade equivalent) and was priced accordingly, discounted for the dealer Thomas Carter, likely used as a display gun, then apparently returned for credit and per the PGCA letter ultimately sold to Nelson Soule. And yes, I'm SURE about the pricing, discount and credit, because I personally looked through nearly the entire Order Book for the entry (remember, the Stock Book was missing) before I found it. (Thanks, Dennis!)

[Rich Anderson]

The later guns seem to have much more engraving on them compared to the early guns on a grade to grade comparison. I wonder why Parker would have increased the amount of engraving?

[Kevin McCormack]

Also need to PS that Dean's short but very accurate treatise on the difficulty of assigning a grade to a particular gun really hits it out of the park on this one - one of the best examples of a "Grade 5 1/2" I've ever seen. As a footnote to validate what we're talking about, when I sold this gun to a high-echelon collector, he told me the reason he wanted it was that it was so significantly different in engraving coverage and execution than the other 4 Grade 5 hammer guns he already owned, it "completed the niche" of that Grade in his collection array.

[todd allen]

Gary
Are you sure that is a $200 gun. A full teardrop on the bolster usually indicated a $250 grade?

I thought a teardrop inside the teardrop was the sign of a $250.00 gun.
Absolutely beautiful gun, btw!

[Bill Murphy]

Read the article. I think Kevin included the Carter letter in the article. I have done a bunch of Carter research for another Parker. He is one interesting frontier businessman. Imagine what Salt Lake City was like in the 1880s.

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Bill, I read the article, very good read, had to have taken awhile to do all that research, for this gun, Thanks Kevin, Gary

[Alan B. Webber]

That gun is an absolute piece of work. Beautiful wood.

[charlie cleveland]

one truly nice gun...charlie

[Mike Franzen]

Another great hammer gun Gary! I'm looking forward to reading the article. The hammer guns are the most fascinating of all the Parker's to me.

[paul stafford jr]

just beautiful, that's a two finger gun if iv'e ever seen one!

[Drew Hause]

Remarkable 6 Iron "Oxford" barrels, which I added here, with an attribution
http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/19406549