The One That Got Away

[Mike Franzen]

While talking with my good friend Jim DiSpagno this morning we got on the subject of great guns we missed out on and let them get away. It brings back bittersweet memories but made for interesting conversation. I thought it would be interesting to hear about Parker guns others let slip through their hands. Tell us your story about the one (or ones) that got away... :eek:

[Dean Romig]

Mike, trust me - they are countless....

[Bill Murphy]

There are not enough years left in my life expectancy to retell all those stories.

[David Dwyer]

I had greatly admired a high condition B grade 16 hammergun owned by a fellow member. He was gracious enough to have let me shoot it at Sanford and it fit me perfect. I begged, badgered , pleaded, pliled him with wiskey butt.... he did promise that if he ever decided to sell it I would get the first call. Well, the call came on a Friday evening and he said I could have it for what he paid Jack P. for the gun. If you have done business with Jack you know the guns are great but the price is absolute top $$$. I told him I would have to think about it overnight. You guessed it-called back the next day and Jack had repurchased the gun to never bee seen since. There are others but that is the most vivid. I later had a chance at a beautiful steel barreled 20ga D grade hammergun. Similar story but when Mark gave me a price I wrote the check!!
David

[George Lander]

There are not enough years left in my life expectancy to retell all those stories.


Bill is correct, but the one that comes immediately to mind was the 1911 Colt Automatic that belonged to Nathan Bedford Forrest III (grandson of the Confederate General) who was an Air Force pilot shot down over Germany near the end of WWII.

Best Regards, George:bowdown:

[Phil Yearout]

Not a Parker story, or even a fine gun story I guess, but very early on in my doublegun interest I found a pair of "Fox" Model B guns, one in 20ga and one in .410. They were identical, nearly mint, and were very early guns; they had the nice duck hunting scene (I assume acid etched) on the bottom of the receivers as opposed to the simple outline of a Fox head that the later Model B's have. I don't even remember the price but it might as well have been a million; I was broke as a dude ranch pony, but I really wanted those guns! Ultimately I tried to buy just the .410 but the seller wouldn't split them up. Seems kinda silly now; lots of folks wouldn't look twice at a Model B. But I lamented those guns for a long time.

[Dave Noreen]

One of the emporiums my Father and I frequented, on those few Saturdays we weren't out in pursuit of some critter furred, feathered or finned, was Webb Hilgar's on Rainier Avenue down in south Seattle. For quite a while Webb had a nice little unmolested Damascus barrel DH-Grade 20-gauge with original skeleton butt. Webb was firm at $125 and my Father was equally firm that he wasn't going to pay over $100 for a Damascus barrel gun!! Not that my Father didn't shoot Damascus barrel guns on a regular basis.

I could have discussed the B-Grade Ansley H. Fox serial number 8 that neither Mr. Murphy or I bought when we had the chance, but this is the Parker site.

[Dean Romig]

These will all serve as Lessons Learned. I think what we can all take away from these "lessons" is 'Write the check!'.

I was a a yard sale in Augusta, Me. one Sunday morning and had examined every item (I thought) on each of the eight-foot banquet tables there in the side yard. When I got back to the first table I did a double take.... there lay an early Colt 1911 in really nice condition. Beside it lay an early Colt revolver in .38 S&W in abut he same condition and of about the same vintage. I was not much into semi-auto pistols at the time so I left it there... even with the $50 price tag on it. The revolver had a bit of rust in the barrel so I left that one too - also with a $50 tag on it..... I can't write any more... I think I'm going to be sick...

[Craig Larter]

Jack Puglisi had a high condition Fox XE many years ago that I looked at a 100 times, on the 101st look it was gone----never seen a better one since. I learned my lesson and as Dean says now I just write the check-----my son can sort it all out some day!

[Destry L. Hoffard]

Mine is a little 20 gauge Model 11 with a solid rib 28 inch factory cylinder bore barrel on it. Weirdly that's the one I think of when I mull over guns I missed out on in my mind. I've got a 32 inch solid rib 20 gauge barrel that I've been saving for years waiting on the right gun to make a two barrel set. That was the gun, I don't really know why I didn't buy it......

DLH

[Robin Lewis]

The same 16 B grade David posted, I missed out on too; not once, not twice but three times!

I first saw it in an ad for a Butterfield Auction in CA. and arranged to be a phone bidder. I was in deer camp and somehow managed to time the auction. The B grade QUICKLY hit my limit and kept right on going. I got one bid in and then I was out of the running.

The next summer, we had a PGCA meeting in KY and I saw it again. It was on Jack's table and the asking price almost knocked me over. I picked it up, fondled it and put it back down. I came back several times and was warming to the idea of starting to dicker with Jack when someone walked up, paid for it and it was gone.

A few years later, it was at our PGCA meeting and entered in the banquet's gun display. It won best gun on display that year. So, I talked to the owner and then knew where it was. It was for sale and sold again some months later. I don't know where it is now?:banghead:

[charlie cleveland]

my storey wood be a4 ga double that was in theshotgun news priced at 400 dollars.i did not even have 2 pennies to rub together in my pocket at that time..i wore that old newspaper out loking and dreaming of that gun or the lc smith 8 ga that i passed on a coupla years ago...charlie

[Bill Zachow]

Mine was a 12 gauge VHE, two barreled set, in a saddle leather trunk case that was covered with the old time ocean liner shipping labels. This was at the Syracuse gun show, two weeks after 9/11. I was talking with a friend at his show table when an elderly couple stopped with the case and asked my friend if he could appraise it for them. They opened the case and he said it looks like a Parker and my friend Bill here can probably give you a value as he collects them. I took the gun and its' two barrel sets out of the case looked them over. It was obvious that the gun spent much of its' life in the case as it was easily a 95 percent gun--colors, bluing, and wood finish. The first set of barrels were the normal 30" full and full. The second set, properly numbered "2" were original 25" barrels with what appeared to be improved and modified chokes, using a plug gauge. The 25 inchers were right as rain with keels and matting end line. After looking everything over very carefully and explaining to the couple what they had, I told them the set was easily worth $3,000. They smiled happily and then asked If I would like to buy them. For some idiotic reason, I passed. Where are you going to find a 2 barreled set with a set a 25 inchers????? Later in the show I saw the set on another dealer's table. Argh!!!

[Dave Suponski]

Like everyone else I try not to think about it.....:banghead: The first one that always comes to mind is back in the Vintagers at Sandanona days. My son and I had just gotten there and were walking the tents. Lo and behold a G grade Parker try-gun without the tools. Price $1500.00 My sons says "Dad buy it" I told him well lets finish looking through the tents and if I don't see anything that talk's to me we will go back and get it. Sooo we went back and guess what......damn it.

[John Truitt]

First is a:
32" DHE 28 ga straight grip vent rib beavertail FE in about 2000 or 2001. This was for sale in the DGJ for about 2 journals. I don't recall the serial number.

Second is:
#207429 which, is a 34" 20 gauge DHE #1 frame no safety gun. I bid on at Julias in 2009 but it quickly went out of my comfort range.
BTW if anyone has this gun and wants to sell it PM me. :)

[Mike Franzen]

I had wanted a Win model 42 for YEARS... it had to be an early model with the "corn cob" forend. I was standing in line waiting to buy my ticket to get into the big gun show in Louisville. I saw an off duty police officer exiting the show area with a gun case tucked under his arm. As he was passing i hollered, "Hey, watcha got in the case"? He walked over, unzipped the case and there was a model 42 with a corn cob forend. "How much you want for that?", I asked. $400 he replied. It was in good condition and the numbers matched. As I handed it back, I thought to myself, there must be some great deals in there if he was walking around with that and couldn't sell it. My uncle kept saying, "buy that gun now!" No, I'll get one inside. The least expensive one I saw the rest of the day was $900. It took me 10 years later to finally get one and that was last month. When I showed it to Unk he said, "I hope you didn't pay more than $400 for it" :banghead:

[David Noble]

1981. 20ga AAHE 32" PG DT SSBP like new $17,000. A lot of money for the gun at that time but I had it. Used the money to buy a house instead. House long gone, never saw gun again......

[Rick Losey]

the Parker I missed is the reason I joined this fine group, a very light good bore honest 12 gauge top lever hammer gun at a heck of a price.

i knew nothing about the serialization book at the time, and passed on it at an antique show because the seller said it came from a duck hunting family that had had it since new.

too light and short for a duck gun, I joined here did some research and found out it matched the specs, called the guy back- he had sold it at the new show.

[John Mazza]

My haunting memory is of a nice German sporter rifle, built on a Mauser action. It was unmarked as to maker, but had that great half octagonal/half round barrel with integral rib. Typical German engraving, butternife bolt handle, slim forend, side panels on the stock, horn buttplate (with a little worm damage). It was chambered in 8x57J (0.318 bore diameter).
It was the only thing that caught my eye at this gun show. My wife was with me & insisted that she buy it for me - for my birthday. The gun wasn't perfect, and I wasn't very educated on such guns - so I said "No." That's the last I saw of that gun...

What in the world is wrong with me ????

From that day on, I've been convinced that I must have been dropped as a child !

[tom leshinsky]

Mine was a Browning superposed 28ga Midas grade. I was walking around the gunshow and when I got back to our table my friend said a guy came by with the gun and wanted $1400 for it. I said why didn't you buy it for me? that was a great buy! I went looking for the gun and found out a friend of mine near the end of the show bought it. It made it all around the show and nobody would buy it. I guess they were afraid it was stolen. It turns out it had salt wood but heck it was still a bargain.

[Larry Stauch]

I've never passed on a Parker I wanted; learned that lesson long ago from other guns.

Like the Browning Dianna grade super light 410 in mint condition at the Sacramento gun show for $5000. I didn't get too excited about it until the next day and we all know what happened then.....

[Mike Franzen]

What happened?

[Larry Stauch]

Well, it was GONE:banghead:

Although it does remind me of the LC Smith 20 gauge Crown grade with 32" vent rib barrels that "I bought" and went back the next day to pick it up and pay the balance and the store owner sold it out from under me to the well healed, big time, trader/collector in town. The store owner said he "forgot" that it was already sold. That guy immediately sold it to a stone fruit grower in the central valley of California and I've been trying to get it back ever since. Not much hope.....

[Destry L. Hoffard]

Ask and ye shall receive apparently. My good friend from Tennessee just called with a lead on a Model 11 20 gauge with 28 inch solid rib cylinder bore barrel and I bought it just about four minutes ago. Couldn't have happened in the middle of the summer when I wasn't sticking back money for duck trips of course. But hey, I wasn't gonna miss the 2nd one and that's for sure.

DLH

[charlie cleveland]

destrey you done good...show us the gun when you got time...charlie

[Mike Franzen]

Congratulations! Now let's see if my friend calls about a certain 2 frame, 10 gauge hammer gun I've been coveting... :rolleyes:

[Destry L. Hoffard]

The 32 inch solid rib barrel I've got it dead mint. The gun has some wear to the blue so they won't match up perfectly but I beggars certainly can't be choosers with something that scarce. If anybody has a 32 inch 20 gauge solid rib barrel that's been used a bit I'd be happy to swap. Hah!

DLH