A Parker Christmas

[Ed Blake]

A couple weeks ago a DH advertised as an unfired restoration by DelGregos was offered for sale. I bought the gun and included with it was a letter from October 14, 1969 signed by Larry DelGrego and addressed to the then-owner of the DH. The gun was as advertised: it was unfired and it appeared to have never been put together. No marks on the breechface at all; however, it has marks on it now. I have been shooting it and it is a wonderful gun. The letter itself is an interesting bit of history by a scion of our little world of the Parker gun. It would appear that a new stock was fit and the old skeleton butt was restored. The original stock is out there somewhere, possibly. If anyone has the capped pistol gripped stock for #163414 I'd like to hear from you.

[Steve Huffman]

Heck of a Christmas present to yourself ! I bet it looks better in hand but I dont know how I just went back and looked at the beautiful pictures . Good for you Ed enjoy it !! Merry Christmas

[charlie cleveland]

boy what a gun you have and glad to hear that its shooting.... charlie

[Daryl Corona]

Nice Ed, very nice. Good for you. Shoot it in good health and then pass it on to Edward. Merry Christmas to you and your "new" Parker.

[Bill Zachow]

Ed, excellent choice of a present for yourself. After reading the letter, however, I am a little confused. Does the gun have a pad or the skeleton butt plate? Without seeing the gun, I would know that all the work done was first rate.

[Ed Blake]

Bill- It has a DelGrego pad. The letter is a bit ambiguous. I understood it to mean a new stock was fit and the old skeleton butt was refurbished. I have not had the courage to take the trigger guard off to see how the wood is marked.

[Destry L. Hoffard]

The old story is that they burned all the original stocks they took off for firewood. Pretty funny if it's true, talk about literally burning money......

Destry

[charlie cleveland]

now thats a good one... charlie

[Bill Zachow]

That story is not true. On a visit to their shop many years ago, Babe told me that he had given a number of "take off" stocks to an acquaintance. He later found out that the fellow was selling them for pretty good money and Babe was unhappy about it. He had a number of stocks and forends in his shop and when I told him I needed a stock for a 1 frame, he told me to look through the pile and see what I could find. I found one and he gave it to me. At the time he had quite a few original roughed out forend pieces also, but said he could not use them as the were too dry. I was surprised. Babe is gone now but Lawrence junior junior is doing one hell of a job.