Gun Dog Magazine

[Chuck Bishop]

Does anyone subscribe to Gun Dog Magazine? There is a blurb about more Parker Invincible shotguns being made that the general public doesn't know about. Anybody see this?

[Bill Murphy]

No, but I would like to know what they have to say.

[Stephen Hodges]

I do subscribe, and I will check the issues I have

[Chuck Bishop]

It's a small column titled Golden Guns in the August 2015 issue. A guy by the name of Thomas Trammell commented on a news and views article on in a previous issue. Trammell claims his neighbor has one and he has 3 stored in a bank vault plus correspondence from Parker Bros.

We always say "Never say never" but this is really hard to believe. There is also a guy out there who claims to have copies of All the Parker records but of course he never produces them.

[Dean Romig]

This should be really good :corn:

[Mike Franzen]

I posted a couple years ago about meeting a man at the Louisville gun show who claimed to have a complete copy of all the records. He told me exactly how he came to possess them and how they were made. He was very convincing.

[Dean Romig]

Mike, if you can remember the details that were so convincing can you please share his story with us?

[Chuck Bishop]

It was Mike's thread that I was referring to concerning the records. These are just rumors until someone steps forward with the evidence.

[Mike Franzen]

Dean I have notes about it. If you're still interested I'll post it

[Dean Romig]

We're very interested Mike - please share your notes.

[Mike Franzen]

Here's the link to my original post. I wasn't making claims about authenticity. It was just a fascinating moment in time and a story that was mesmerizing.
http://parkerguns.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10322

[charlie cleveland]

mighty interesting storey to which i wish we could find the end of this storey...did any body ever check to see if this tom hass wife worked for remington....charlie

[Mike Franzen]

Charlie as far as I know that was never confirmed.

[Mills Morrison]

Never say never, but I have a hard time believing there are multiple Invincibles that are not accounted for. There may be a few that began life as VH's.

[Rich Anderson]

There are rumors that more than one VH was turned into an AH or better and passed off as original due to missing record and stock books.

[Kevin McCormack]

Some things to think about while musing & perusing this and Mike's original thread:

- having copies of ALL the records (in hard copy) would involve a massive logistics consideration in preservation and storage (e.g., attention to temperature, relative humidity, etc.), not to mention a dedicated space for same;

. Consider that the PGCA 'research team' that spent a solid week of 8-10 hr. days M-F at the Remington archives in Ilion in 1999 at final count had Xeroxed a total of 33, 600 and some-odd sheets of 11x17 legal sized paper. And these were only the Order Books that were copied!

-This total did not include the copies made of the existing IBM cards, nor did it include the 17 Order Books that yours truly and the previous Executive Director of the PGCA had copied the summer before on the very first trip to Ilion to copy the records. And of course it did not include the Stock Books, which are physically 2-3 times the size in format of the Order Books.

- the anecdotal destruction of some of the records in a fire stretches to fabrication the concept that such a fire occurred seemingly without any note or historical reference on the part of Remington or the sporting goods press and trade newspapers, who were ever-eager to note such mundane things as a change in the type of primers used in shotshell production; e.g., "FIRE AT THE ARMS!! PRICELESS RECORDS DESTROYED!!!;

- The one confirmed story of destruction of some of the records (Stock Books, according to eyewitnesses) that is universally recognized as true was when the basement of the Ilion works was flooded due to a leaky roof (?), and some of the custodial staff laid the large-format Stock Books in stepping-stone fashion on the floor of the basement so people wouldn't get their feet wet. (At that time all the Parker record books were stored in the basement in large wooden crates that formerly held trap and skeet machines, drill presses, and other medium-sized shop equipment used in the Arms;

-the personage of "Tom Haas" should be easily verifiable through birth, death, shooting, and/or other public records. He may in fact be a real person instead of a fictitious character, but on the other hand may fall in to the ephemeral category similar to Simeon Udar, "Cat -faced boy of the Umatillas";

- similarly, "the woman in charge of the library" (Tom's wife) is probably a real person, but her tenure as keeper of the Remington Archives should also be quite easy to verify: Remington maintains an employee list of all such persons. To my knowledge, the only woman I ever heard of having been connected with the archives was a graduate student in Library Science that Dennis Sanita, who maintained the library at the time (late 1990s) , had hired to organize and catalog the Parker and early Remington records, photos, etc. Unfortunately for us all, funding for her grant tenure was not extended beyond her initial tour of duty, which I believe was less than 6 months.;

- Remington Arms has been bought and resold a number of times since we were fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to copy the records in the late 1990s. Nowadays, legalese is the language of communication and 'potential liability' is the linchpin of negotiations involving ANY request or interrogatory involving historical documents under their possession.

- Most of the 'old timers' who worked their way up in Remington corporate management are gone now. In place of their historical perspectives and firsthand accounts of what really went on there, we are lately offered tales of the "fourth Invincible", 4-gauge guns, the "Amish A-1 Special", and other 'possible' but outlandishly improbable scenarios, given what meager institutional memory is left.

Just some things to think about..........

[Mike Franzen]

"Simeon Udar, "Cat -faced boy of the Umatillas";

Kevin I think Simeon would agree with you. At least this old thread has given us some interesting reading, pondering and speculation during the long, dog days of summer.

[Daryl Corona]

Geez-jus! That just might haunt my dreams tonight.:shock:

[Rich Anderson]

Be careful Daryl, you can't run that fast yet with your leg you might fall and be devoured.:)

[Mills Morrison]

I need therapy after looking at that.