HOW MANY LEFT?

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

I have often wondered just how many Parkers have survived! Out of roughly 242,000 give or take a few, PGCA members 10,000, Dealers 5,000, other collectors 20,000 Total 35,000 any one venture a estimate maybe I am way off? Gary

[Bill Murphy]

I will guess that no more than 60,000 are beyond shooting condition, maybe many less.

[David Holes]

I will guess that over 50% are beyond shooting condition. There just seems to be a lot of parts for sale.

[Brian Dudley]

I used to own a '24 Model T. And that was a common question people used to ask in those circles. Something tells me that more Parkers survived than Tin lizzys (proportionately).

[Michael Murphy]

Gary,
Interesting, but ultimately unresolvable topic.
Your guess puts survival at @14.5%.

I don't have access to the production numbers, but possibly an estimate based on year or period of production would be just as interesting.
Example, guns built in the 1880's - 5.0% survival; 1890's - 10.0% survival, etc.

[Dean Romig]

Give some thought to the number of Parkers that remain "in the family" of former owners or even as yet undiscovered in accumulations of deceased family member's "old stuff we've never got around to sortin' through yet." Or loaned or borrowed and never got back... or stolen that nobody knows the whereabouts of...

I think that number could easily exceed 50,000.

[Mark Ouellette]

I think that a member or two have 5000 or more tucked away...

This might be an interesting fact if the PARKER PAGES editor were to privately pole all PGCA members for the number of Parkers in their posession. The total number would be interesting especially if those guns were subtotaled by gauge and grade.

[Dean Romig]

No offense intended to anyone... but I think we might get a response of 30% of the membership and the accuracy of that response might be 65%.

I'm just tossing hypothetical figures around, obviously, but I think it would be a wasted effort.

[George M. Purtill]

Give some thought to the number of Parkers that remain "in the family" of former owners or even as yet undiscovered in accumulations of deceased family member's "old stuff we've never got around to sortin' through yet." Or loaned or borrowed and never got back... or stolen that nobody knows the whereabouts of...

I think that number could easily exceed 50,000.

I agree with Dean- there are many undiscovered Parkers. They are a lot easier to forget about than a 1930 AA express body truck.

[greg conomos]

Guns generally live a pampered life compared to most products. They usually sit indoors and are more or less cared for. Yes, I know some get used as shovels but most don't.

Some get lost in lakes and rivers. Some get blown up. Some get turned in to gun scrap drives. Some get just worn out.


I'd bet 40-50% are still around in one piece.

As a side note, the other day I saw a public notice...I think it was in the Wall Street Journal...of ATF confiscated guns. I didn't see any Parkers but I also didn't spend much time looking. What was noteworthy was the staggering number. It was a full page ad in the smallest print.

[Mark Ouellette]

Dean,

I agree that a survey might yield a 30% response rate but I would expect from our members 100% accuracy should they care to participate.

Mark

[Dean Romig]

Okay... I'll go up to 89% accuracy. :corn:

[Mark Ouellette]

So... who would "fudge" the facts to increase the value or THEIR Parkers???

[Dean Romig]

As a side note, the other day I saw a public notice...I think it was in the Wall Street Journal...of ATF confiscated guns. I didn't see any Parkers but I also didn't spend much time looking. What was noteworthy was the staggering number. It was a full page ad in the smallest print.


Can you give us a lead as to where we can find that notice?

[Peter Clark]

I have often wondered just how many Parkers have survived! Out of roughly 242,000 give or take a few, PGCA members 10,000, Dealers 5,000, other collectors 20,000 Total 35,000 any one venture a estimate maybe I am way off? Gary

There are 3 and I have them all.:)

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

I am thinking that Parkers would have been cared for a little better than most because of the price paid at the time of purchase, A lot of people you talk to today about old guns always mentions grandpa's old rabbit ear gun and a lot of these could be Parkers, just waiting to be discovered. how many? who knows; but what we see here today does not seem to be that many Gary

[Dave Suponski]

I wonder how many were scraped during the WW2 era metal drives. My guess on remaining Parkers would be about 1/3 total production.

[Bill Murphy]

Come on, Dave. I have read the come ons about sending guns to England. I would not have given up a fluid steel Parker to those libbos. If they asked me to get on a boat with a Garand, OK, but send them my bird gun, no way.

[Robert Delk]

Let's not forget the Parkers sold to people in other countries. I would imagine they tended to be of the higher grades and WW2 probably took it's toll.

[Pete Lester]

I wonder how many were scraped during the WW2 era metal drives. My guess on remaining Parkers would be about 1/3 total production.

I have wondered the same thing myself, by 1942 ammo and gun manufacturer warnings on shooting Damascus and Twist barrels guns were well established. There was a promotional effort to make people believe such guns were essentially decorative items, most thought they were obsolete and dangerous. By that time the Dam/Twist guns were most likely in the hands of 2nd and 3rd owners. Patriotism was especially strong, people wanted to contribute to the war effort, sacrafice was the order of the day, rationing of gas, rubber, butter, sugar. I believe many Dam/Twist guns, hammer and hammerless, maybe a majority of them, were melted down to help produce the arsenal of democracy. Attrition of fluid steel guns is probably substantial but less than composite barrel guns.

From an article on the WWII scrap drives:

Many of the other materials collected couldn't readily be recycled either. Many who lived through the war remember collecting old newspapers, but apart from using them as packing material and such there was little to be done with them. A 1941 aluminum-scrap drive to help the plucky Brits pulled in 70,000 tons of aluminum pots and pans, but only virgin aluminum could be used to manufacture aircraft.

Iron and steel were a different story. These metals could be easily melted down and used for munitions. It's not as if the U.S. lacked domestic sources of iron ore, though. The real challenge was gearing up American industry for war production. That meant everything from increasing steel-making capacity to building more factories and designing better weapons. Recycling of steel and iron unquestionably helped. One campaign netted five million tons of steel in just three weeks, and scrap-metal drives continued for most of the war.Useful though recycled steel and iron were, some scrap drives went overboard. In addition to old streetcar tracks, wrought iron fences, church bells, and the like, people carted off relics of previous wars, including cannons, park statues, and other memorials. When the memorials were being rebuilt after the war, many wished they hadn't been so hasty.

[Brad Bachelder]

O.K., I have tried to stay out of this post, but Pete you struck a nerve with the words "promotional effort". You are far too kind. I believe that the manufacturers intentionally bereated composite barrels for the sake of profit. I absolutely agree that those warnings on ammo boxes caused the premature surrender from service for many, many composite barrels. Fortunately there is a growing number of us that understand what happened.
Composite barrels are the "state of the art" in shotgunning history. I don't want to know how many have been lost to ignorance, but I agree that the number is most likely very high.


Brad

[Bill Zachow]

I'm going to throw my "guess" out there and say that at least 3/4th of the 242,000 produced are still out there, somewhere. As a previous writer said, guns were basically well taken care of. They were expensive and a major necessity and generally, do not wear out. Except for losses due to fire or being dropped in a lake, a gun, and particularly a Parker, will be around for almost forever. Additionally, over the years, I have kept track of certain types of Parkers. These were guns that I had a special interest in. I know of well over a100 8 gauges and about 90 back action Parkers. The former were made from the earliest days of production up to about 1915. My list of those constitutes almost 25percent of total production and I am oy one observer. With the backactions, my listing is close to 10 percent of "The Parker Story" estimated production of 1000. Those guns were made in the earliest days of Parker production. If I can find 10 per cent of the backactions and 25 percent of the 8 gauges without much trouble and prior to using a computer, then there must be a whole lot of these guns out there. One final point, for what its worth, my collection has covered the gamut of Parker serials and gauges and I own or have owned Parker No. 286 and No, 242103 and a whole lot in between. Parkers are not hard to find as a lot of them exist, more than we think.

[Dean Romig]

I believe that the manufacturers intentionally bereated composite barrels for the sake of profit. I absolutely agree that those warnings on ammo boxes caused the premature surrender from service for many, many composite barrels. Fortunately there is a growing number of us that understand what happened.
Composite barrels are the "state of the art" in shotgunning history. I don't want to know how many have been lost to ignorance, but I agree that the number is most likely very high.


Brad

Brad, I couldn't agree more strongly.

[greg conomos]

If you Google 'ATF seized property wall street journal' you will learn all about it.

[Richard Flanders]

A friend who was in the Coast Guard told me of, under orders, taking a bandsaw to a few Parkers and tossing them in the drink when the Coasties swapped from them to some newer pump guns for their recreational shooting off the fantail of the ship....

[Dean Romig]

Two years ago at Hausmann's I was having ear protectors fitted by a guy who also dealt in walnut stocks. He said he had literally hundreds of stocks he was able to save when he took an industrial chop saw to the loads of "turn in" and confiscated guns brought to him by the police to destroy. He told me he would cut them (assembled) in half about an inch or so forward of the standing breech. The cops let him have the wood but the metal was to be scrapped. He said he was forced, by contract, to destroy some of the finest old SXS shotguns he has ever seen.... among other clunkers and wall-hangers.

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

I hope to goodness that fate never becomes law! I do not think I would go along with it! What did Charlton Heston say? As to numbers of Parkers surviving, I do not know and am just guessing, but it would be nice to poll all members as to the number of guns in each gauge they have. I think we as a group would be a pretty good representation of surviving guns, what do you think?

[Bruce Day]

Garry , I have no idea what the answer is to your question, but it seems that we don't go very long before some new Parker pops up. Anecdotally, when we show Parkers at places like the Pheasant Fest or the NRA Convention, it is common that some visitor to the booth will mention that they have a Parker at home. They are not a PGCA member, not what I would call a gun person, just an ordinary hunter. Its usually a V grade 12ga but you hear stories about it being a small bore and lots of engraving. We refer them to the PGCA website for identification and some follow up and some don't.

And as Mike indicated below, we are far removed out here on the Big Windy from Parkerdom.

[Mike Shepherd]

I field trial with an old VH 12 with 30" barrels, an inappropriate pad, sling swivels, sling. There is no finish left, stock, case color, or blue. You can tell it once had checkering though. The wood is beat up, double triggers, 3" DAH etc... On a good day I could get $500 from a drunken sailor who wasn't too bright in the first place. But many many times during a field trial people have walked up and said in a hallowed tone of voice "Is that a Parker?" The cache is still there seventy years after the last one was made. Based on my experience I think more than half have survived. And as far as Parkers go, I am out in the boonies.

Best,

Mike

[Pete Lester]

Ed Muderlak had pondered the same thing several years ago. He did a little bit of research using the guns sold annually as tabulated by Roy Eckrose and some other sources. He covers this in chapter 43, "What are the chances" if his book "Parker Guns, Shooting Flying and the American Experience."

EDM's conclusion; "Expensive high grade Parkers were pampered and preserved, knockabouts were ridden hard and put away wet, suffering disproportionate attrition."

"Parker Brothers and Remington made more than 46 times as many knockabouts (Trojan and V grade) than Parker Story grade (C and up) ; yet knockabouts are less than four times as prevalent as higher grades, according to sales data."

"One way to rationalize this disparity - 31 of 2400 (Parker Story Grade) versus 119 of 112,000 - is to conclude that Trojan and Vulcan survivorship is less than 10% of grades C and above."

I will venture that if survivorship of Trojan and V grade is low, survivorship of composite barrel guns is even lower.

[Robert Delk]

The part about the Coast Guard cutting Parkers up just about made me cry.

[Dean Romig]

EDM's conclusion; "Expensive high grade Parkers were pampered and preserved, knockabouts were ridden hard and put away wet, suffering disproportionate attrition."



And we have seen a number of Parkers that break even that rule...

Some AAHE's that have been "rode hard and put away wet" as well as some of the very lowest grades that, for whatever reason, look like they just left Meriden or Illion yesterday. These are certainly in the minority and don't really affect the statistics of surviving Parkers.

[Bruce Day]

[quote=Pete Lester;80820]EDM's conclusion; "Expensive high grade Parkers were pampered and preserved, knockabouts were ridden hard and put away wet, suffering disproportionate attrition."

/quote]

Here's the chopped barrel, chopped stock BHE I had with replacement Belgium barrel. I was able to sell it for the asking price to a fellow in the trade who will restock and rebarrel the gun and do a nice job, probably for resale well above $10,000 .


Then following are a few Trojans.

I have found that $30 guns were treasured and cared for by some people and $200 guns were abused and neglected by others.

[Fred Preston]

Like those Trojans, sort of puts my little 12, 16, 20 group to shame.

[John Farrell]

Like the 1930 gun that reappeared in 2003 and again in 2012 was never used in the interim.

[George M. Purtill]

Like the 1930 gun that reappeared in 2003 and again in 2012 was never used in the interim.

what was that?

[John Farrell]

George - here's the story of the reappearance of the 1930 Parker VHE.

There was an ad reading "old double barrel Parker shotgun" in a rural shopper newspaper I got in the mail on 6/23/2012 - and read through on Sunday evening, 6/24/2012 while sipping a dram of Laphroiag.

I called the number listed in the ad at 5:30 PM and looked at it on Monday 6/25 at 1:30 PM. It's a VHE with a broken stock. There is a chance that it was special ordered since it came with 30" barrels choked F&F. The gun had a recoil pad and spacers added to the stock making a 15" LOP. According to the stockmaker that has the gun now, the original stock did not have standard Parker dimensions, rather it had trapshooter dimensions including a thick comb. The checkering is typical Parker and the gun SN is stamped in the bottom tang.

The rest of the gun looks like it left Parker Bros. yesterday. My PGCA letter states it was completed on 10/19/1930. According to the seller's story shortly after the gun was purchased the original owner broke the stock at the wrist and it was never used again. It was passed down through the family until it arrived in the possession of a descendant that ran out of beer money in 2003. Whereupon the seller bought it and, like the previous family member owners, left it in the Red Head case under his bed.

I gave the seller a check to hold it at 2:50 PM until 6/27 because of his harried life-style. We concluded the cash deal on 6/27/2012. The 2 day interim gave me a chance to check out his story of the history of the owner of the gun. His verbal history of the owner, which he got from the seller, largely checked out with a Minnesota historian. There were a few details where his story and the historic record differed, but they were inconsequential. The conversation left me with the impression he knew at least a couple of the heirs of the original owner.

The funny part of the resurfacing of the gun was at the conclusion of the purchase. As I was putting the two pieces of the gun in the zip up Red Head case (the barrels and receiver and the broken stock) the seller said to me - "oh no. the case doesn't go with the gun!" On a good day, with all the signs of the heavens pointing in your direction, if you offered the gun case for sale, you would be lucky to get $1.00 for it. I just smiled and carried the two pieces out to the car.

[George M. Purtill]

thanks
That is a wonderful story and I think I remember the old thread and pictures now.
It is not often- RARE- that a Parker is found in never used condition. But it happens..........

[John Farrell]

Actually, the gun has been fired. There is some evidence on the face of the receiver. But it can't have been much considering the condition of the gun overall. If you remember the photo of the split stock, the absence of any trace of cleaning solvent or gun oil in the head of the stock, or anywhere else in the wood, supports the limited use of the gun. Altogether, it is the nicest Parker I have ever seen, disregarding for a moment the broken stock.