Very Cool Parker History

[mike corley]

I received an email from Chuck in regards to my letter for a recently acquired Parker. He said my letter was on the way and recommended a call to Griffin & Howe for further details. Thanks so much for the advice Chuck!
Well I got off the phone with Bob Beach just a little while ago and he had some pretty cool info. My gun was originally purchased in 1927 by one Mrs. Vincent Astor! Her husband being the son of John Jacob Astor IV who was lost on the Titanic. Her name was Helen Dinsmore Huntington. They were married for 26 years.
She had the gun for 6 months and took it back to Von Lengerke & Detmold. After that it was purchased again from a Mr. Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen in 1929. I didn't know the name before today but apparently he was very well known in the NJ area. After finding out this info this one may have to stick around a little while:)

[Linn Matthews]

That sounds like a keeper. Congratulations!

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Mike, did I miss an earlier post? What grade parker did you acquire, and of course we would all love to see pictures.

[mike corley]

It was a 28 ga VHE 00 frame that I was going to sell but have decided to hold on to for a little while:):):)

[Harold Lee Pickens]

WOW!!!

[mike corley]

I haven't taken good pictures yet. I had originally purchased this gun to resale and broke some forum rules by obtaining information here for that,my fault. So I really don't know if I am now allowed to post pics or not. I'm not looking for any info,just sharing a cool gun with history:)

[mike corley]

I have these.You can tell its a solid 40% but probably no better.

[Chuck Bishop]

Mike, luck was with you. That gun looks well used but factory original as long as the barrels are the correct length. My advice is leave it as is, don't do anything to it other than keep the bores clean and oiled and wipe down the metal with an oily rag.

Can you take pictures of the inside of the case? Is their an inscription on the case lid?

[mike corley]

Barrels are 26" full and correct. Case is inscribed R.Mc.D. Don't know how far the line this owner was but case looks original and somewhere down the line someone engraved it.

[charlie cleveland]

mighty nice....charlie

[mike corley]

Got a few more pictures.

[mike corley]

Few more.

[Dave Suponski]

What a great gun!

[Dean Romig]

That was an excellent purchase Mike - you couldn't have done better and I agree with Chuck - don't do anything to it as far as refinishing it. It is a great gun and well cared for.

[mike corley]

Yeah. I'm not touching it. This gun was shot a lot and someone really enjoyed it. Was it supposed to have a patent date beside the release tab on the forearm? If so ,its pretty much worn off as is most of the checkering. Like I said, this gun was ENJOYED!

[Dean Romig]

The forend latch patent date was eliminated from that location long before your gun was produced.

[mike corley]

Cool. I was sorta worried. Once I get the paperwork I gotta send this one off for an appraisal. To hard, with the extra info, to determine a value.

[Erick Dorr]

Mike your gun has an interesting past. Please release the top lever after disassembling the gun and allow it to return gently to center otherwise you are liable to break the top lever. With thumb on side of top lever depress metal tab in bottom rear of receiver water table with a tool. Voila you will have saved damaging your gun.
Erick

[mike corley]

Thanks man. Done. I have some pretty nice guns(colts,Winchesters) that are valuable,over the 10k number, but have never had a Parker other than an old trojan. It's hard to look at a gun like this and see any crazy value or worry about breaking somethinsomething like that which would kill any value it does have I assume. Seems pretty crazy.

[Richard Flanders]

That gun has got to have some stories to tell. It has most definitely seen a lot of woods and likely killed a lot of birds. Nice gun.

[mike corley]

Thanks. The guy I bought it from knew his grandfather got the gun before WW2 but couldn't figure out exactly from who or where. His grandfather worked at Rice Hope Plantation here in Moncks Corner. After getting the history from G&H we know that the Senator from NJ owned Rice Hope in the 30s. I gave him that info today and he seemed happy.

[mike corley]

Got my letter today. Thanks so much Chuck for the super fast turnaround and the heads up to call Bob! Gun letters as 100% righteous. At 5lbs 2 oz I can see why people LOVED to carry these when searching for birds!

[mike corley]

Anyone know which name caries a bigger weight up north? Astor of Frelinghuysen? I've actually been trying to find descendents of either with no luck yet. If there were a shotgun out there that my grandfather or grandmother had then I would want to know. But I guess when you talk about families of that magnitude they may already have a room full:)

[Jean Swanson]

Mike:

If I may put my 2 cents into the pile----------I agree, the gun should be "as is", do not do anything , other than keeping it in the same condition by oiling the metal with a light coat . I would have Kevin McCormack of Oakton,VA reline the inside felt, replace the straps, replace the carrying handle, and rejuvenate the outside leather of the case . It would change the entire presentation of the gun & case.

[John Campbell]

With all due respect, I would not have that case relined. There is no good reason to change this aspect of originality. A new handle and security straps are needed however. With patina to match the case.

I would also make it a practice to attach the forearm to the barrels rather than have it bash around loose atop the wrist and top lever of the gun.

And finally, "Astor" is the hands down preferred social surname in the NE. If one has a choice that is.

[mike corley]

I'll be honest. I don't think anything is going to be done other that a little oil. I like the history of it so I'm gonna leave it as found:)

[mike corley]

I had contacted Mr. Delgrego when I was thinking about a restoration and he said guys were paying 5k for a OO VHE 28 without wood if they could find it??? Is that the case? How many of these were produced?

[Dean Romig]

Possibly... for one in high condition otherwise.

[John Campbell]

Let's see. You own a VHE 28 on a 00 frame that was originally purchased by the daughter-in-law of John Jacob Astor. Then owned by another luminary of New England's industrial history.

It's in darn good condition for its age. It's in what is most likely its original case, which is also in darn good condition for its age.

My bet is that if you take this gun and its provenance to an auction house like Cowan's you'll end up getting a lot more than 5K for it. Just my opinion...

[mike corley]

Man you can tell that last post was typed on a "smart" phone.:) What I was trying to say was that I agree with the value on this gun. However, I'm not used to people buying stuff and paying that kind of money just to restore it. Don't see that a lot with Winchesters.

[mike corley]

is it correct for there to be case color under the forarm on metal portion? the rest of the gun is blue so I just wondered.

[John Campbell]

While it is difficult to tell from your photos, it is quite possible that you are mistaking the remains of the gun's colour case for "blue." It tends to fade that way...

If this is indeed the "case", the unexposed case colours are correct.

[mike corley]

Aagghhh! Freeakin smartphones and there auto correct demons!
Pretty sure the gun is blue. I assumed that it would have been the standard by this time in production. However, I have never seen a blued forearm underneath.

[John Campbell]

Mr. Corley:
You have reached the stage of endless speculation. You're best bet with this gun is to take it to a responsible double gun professional for appraisal. It is the only way you will know for sure what its relative condition is, its state of originality, general value, etc.

This depends greatly on your location in the country. Or where you are willing to transport the gun.

[mike corley]

Any recommendations in the Charleston,SC area?

[John Campbell]

If you can wait, why not bring it up to the Spring Southern SxS in the Sanford, NC area. The Parker Collectors will be there as well as a host of experts from around the nation. Just Google Deep River Sporting Clays for all the details.

[Charles Matthews]

Mike,
Jim Kelly at Darlington Gun Works. He is the best. Little bit of a drive from Charleston, but not bad.(we go all the time).

[mike corley]

Once the letter gets here I'll take it to Jim. I've been in the shop before. I knew he was a great smith but didn't know he was the guy for appraisals.

[mike corley]

I was looking through the Parker identification book today. I noticed that my gun the two before it were all three identical. You see this quite often with 12 gauges but no 3 in a row 28 gauges anywhere else that I saw. The 28 gauges are speckled throughout at best. Since Miss Astor took this gun back after a short time I wonder if she bought it to go shooting with friends as a women's club type thing and just never got around to it. If so I wonder if two of her other friends also ordered 28 gauges to be manufactured?

[John Campbell]

No disrespect intended, but it seemed a bit unusual to me that Ms. Astor would purchase a V Grade Parker. The Astor family could buy the whole Parker company with pocket change. Perhaps her intent was to "trade up"?

But it 's all speculation unless you do the research...

[mike corley]

I've had the same thought for the last 2 weeks. Don't understand why a woman who could own Parker would buy a VHE,but she did. That's why I think she was wanting to learn or something and just swung by the store and picked up one that the salesman recommended maybe? When I saw that in the Parker book it made me wonder if the guns were ordered together.

[mike corley]

No disrespect intended, but it seemed a bit unusual to me that Ms. Astor would purchase a V Grade Parker. The Astor family could buy the whole Parker company with pocket change. Perhaps her intent was to "trade up"?

But it 's all speculation unless you do the research...
What do you mean by "trade up"?

[Fred Lowe]

Invincible,AAH,AH,BH,CH,DH,GH are all higher grades. More engraving, nicer wood.
A VH is a relatively "plain Jane" to the higher grades of finish and craftsmanship.
Go to the home page and view "Parker grades".
Mike, are you sure it is a VHE? It looks to me like extractors, not ejectors.

[mike corley]

I understand the grades. Just trying to figure out what you were saying. It letters as a VHE purchased by Mrs. Vincent Astor. So....don't really know why she bought it. Back to the question. Do you think Parker made 3 identical VHE 28's in a row because of an order or just because?

[Dean Romig]

My gun was originally purchased in 1927 by one Mrs. Vincent Astor! Her husband being the son of John Jacob Astor IV who was lost on the Titanic. Her name was Helen Dinsmore Huntington. They were married for 26 years.
She had the gun for 6 months and took it back to Von Lengerke & Detmold.


I wonder if she might have been a daughter of known sporting artist Dwight W. Huntington (1860 - 1906). And and she may have bought the gun for someone else, like a son or daughter or nephew.... who later decided they really didn't want it or maybe wished for something better? .... or maybe it was purchased as a prop for a painting - we'll probably never know without exhaustive research.

[will evans]

Why she would buy a VHE instead of a fancier grade? The answer to that question might be as simple as her tastes. She might have grown up seeing even her wealthy father and grandfathers carry and perhaps even prefer relatively plain guns. Maybe she found the higher grade guns to be gaudy? My wife would pick a plain gun over one engraved with dogs. Engrave one with flowers and she would ooh and ahh over the thing - to the extent she would ooh or ahh over a gun in the first place. If Mrs. Astor were trying to share in the activities of her likely distant husband, with whom she was unable to have children, then perhaps she had the wisdom not to show up with a nicer gun than her husband.

How many millionaires do you know who hunt with plain jane guns today? I would wager that to be the vast majority. A friend of mine married up, which has allowed me to shoot doves with one of the wealthiest tree farmers in the State of Georgia several times. The man usually pulls out a single shot 20ga that continually rolls around in the trunk of his Buick sedan.

Knowing the history of a gun is interesting; however, provenance is a little like beauty - the importance is in the eye of the beholder. The provenance value is going to be significantly subjective, if any at all. How much would you pay for a pair of basketball shoes worn by Michael Jordan? How much would you pay for a pair worn by Michael Jordan's wife?

[mike corley]

Wow, I'm going to learn to not type on my phone one day.

[mike corley]

While I am a dawg fan I'll have to disagree with you on that one. There THOUSANDS of "famous" people in the world nowadays that make millions of dollars and I'm sure I wouldn't want a pair of shoes that MJ's wife wore. However, if I were a painting collector and I found a painting that had been in the Gates household or Buffet household ,whether he or his wife purchased it , it would be very ,very cool. I don't come from a well off family but I have to believe that just being an Astor back in the 20's was much bigger than being a celebrity today. Even if Vincent didn't buy the gun himself, it was still in his household for a period of time and I wouldn't be surprised if he shot it himself. Its speculation but for all we know he could have told her to pick it up. I honestly believe there was way more of a chance of a presidential figure handling that gun once Frelinghuysen bought it than when Ms. Astor had it. The Senator was kicking around a lot with past ,present and future presidents back in that time frame. Either way, find me another 28g a 00 frame that was owned by the Astor family:)

[will evans]

I had never heard of the Frelinghuysen family, although I consider myself a student of politics. They are a bit of a political dynasty. 4 US senators in one family is really something, and a member of the family is still active in Congress today. Republicans, too. That obviously would hold interest for a few people.

I just read Vincent Astor was worth $1.5 billion dollars at his death back in 1959. The original, John Jacob Astor represented nearly 1% of the US economy in his day. By comparison, Bill Gates represents about .55%. Those Astors were some pretty shrewd slumlords.

[John Davis]

The eternal question: How much value does provenance add to a gun? Answer: Depends. Some names certainly add value, i.e. Oakley, Roosevelt, Gable, Bogart. However, just because it was owned or handled by a once rich or famous person doesn't automatically mean extra change. I spent much time and money researching one such fellow. Published a book and sold about 1000 copies. Perhaps I added a dollar or two to the value of the Kimble guns (in the right market) but in most eyes they are still just run of the mill Parkers at best. And there are at least two of us on this board that have in our collections a number of guns with well owned provenance (Brother Murphy). It's worth keeping in mind that value isn't only measured in dollars and cents. Sometimes it's best measured in rich history and the dividends earned through discovering it.

[John Campbell]

Mr. Corley:
Don't let the naysayers get to you. As someone who owns more than one fine gun with outstanding provenance, I can tell you that your Parker 28 undoubtedly has added value.

How "much" is the question. And to answer that, you have to sell the gun. Which is something none of us like to do.

But think of it this way: Take that Parker and its provenance to Cowan's and put it alongside a few other Parker 28s in roughly the same condition. Then let the bidding begin.

I will wager that your gun brings a LOT more!

So, relax. And enjoy your treasure. It will return a worthy price when you are ready to sell. The rest of this is just talk...

[John Davis]

IMHO: take two guns of similar condition, grade, gauge, ect., and same price. Lay them side by side. One has well owned provenance, the other does not. The one with provenance will probably sell first. It may even command a slight premium. The problem is when folks discover that their gun was once owned by someone of past fame or fortune, (no matter who it was) they think they have found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Historically speaking perhaps they have, but in strict monetary terms not necessarily so. If you can connect it to someone like Annie Oakley, then all bets are off. But then anything connected with Miss Oakley renders collectors insane. Selling a gun with special provenance requires a very special and limited market. 98 + % of the people on this forum or in the general market place are not going to pay significantly more for a gun just because it belonged to the one time rich and famous. I, however, really, really, really like a gun with provenance. I think the gun in question was a fabulous find with a wonderful history and would encourage Mr. Corely to do lots of research. I promise that it will add untold personal value to the gun for him.

[Daryl Corona]

Could not agree more John. Provenance is what makes a gun stand out from the crowd, at least as far as I'm concerned. Just holding a gun that someone of note has owned and shot brings a special connection to a time long ago that I think we all would like to relive.

[Bill Murphy]

My guns without provenance are for sale. The ones with good provenance, especially shooter provenance, not so much. Of course, my feeling about this puts me in the minority of Parker owners. So, John, how about the Fred Kimble B Grade hammer gun?

[John Davis]

Still searching.

[mike corley]

Me to. Every day:):):)

[mike corley]

Maybe not for the Fred Kimble gun but always something interesting.

[Dean Romig]

Sometimes it's best measured in rich history and the dividends earned through discovering it.



The gratifying rewards of the 'chase'.

[mike corley]

That same "chase" with the same guy put me on an 1892 Deluxe Takedown 44-40 yesterday:)

[charlie cleveland]

to me a gun that has a little history with it is special to me especially if i get the gun from somebody i know well and they hunted with it...for instance i got a g grade 20 ga parker from russ jackson a f. a. loomis 8 ga from destrey hofford...these gun s means a lot to me because of there owners...got more guns from other fellows which mean as much to meoff the site its worth telling about a d h grade parker with damascus barrels owned by the founder of johnson and jonson medical supplies its mr robert woods johnson gun...anyway history to a gun is important at least to me....charlie

[will evans]

Mr. Corley:
Don't let the naysayers get to you. As someone who owns more than one fine gun with outstanding provenance, I can tell you that your Parker 28 undoubtedly has added value.

How "much" is the question. And to answer that, you have to sell the gun. Which is something none of us like to do.

But think of it this way: Take that Parker and its provenance to Cowan's and put it alongside a few other Parker 28s in roughly the same condition. Then let the bidding begin.

I will wager that your gun brings a LOT more!

So, relax. And enjoy your treasure. It will return a worthy price when you are ready to sell. The rest of this is just talk...

Some of you guys can leave a fellow shaking his head. No where has anyone said that the provenance of this gun does not add value, so to label anyone as a naysayer is a bit of an overreach. How much it adds will be unknown until it goes to a buyer. 100% of the people who have ever visited this website should be able to agree with that last sentence.

I had asked about the gun's LOP earlier. A short gun might indicate the intended shooter in the family, given that there were no children in the household. A longer LOP might suggest the gun was intended for Mr. Astor. Maybe, maybe not but if you knew for a fact the gun was the personal firearm of either the wife versus Vincent Astor, then how would that effect the provenance value? A little? A lot? Depends on the buyer, right?
That's not being a naysayer.

[mike corley]

LOP is 14 1/2 I believe but will check when I get home.