In answer to your question, again, "To each his own."

I bought Adm. Perry's gun, fully knowing its provenance, in rough condition, for quite a tidy sum :shock: with the full intention of someday making it nice again.

Rich, the easy answer is to pick up another set of 20 guage damascus 0 frame barrels and have them pimped up and fitted. A rotted bore set would work since these would be just used for shooting, add sleeve and choke tubes. You already have the solution to the pad issue solved. Mount the new one, don't cut the wood and keep the old one for resale. Let me know if you run across a set of tired 16 gauge 0 frame Dam while looking for the 20s, I have a similar project ongoing....:cool:

+1

What if I borrow a tad of equity from some real investments to pay down any potential loss of value on a restoration.
The guns I own are emotional tangible assets. That being said, how do you put a price tag on their utilitarian and experiential value.
Life is short, you only live once.

When I have found myself in the same situation as Rich Anderson---rare gun that has warts that bug me (the result of an emotional purchase)----I sell it and move on. It doesn't take long to forget about a cast off gun and set your sights on something more satisfying. In the long run you will be happier and better of financially. Craig

Rich,
some pictures would be beneficial so that we could see the condition.

As to the question regarding which makes more sense; diligent maintenance of a gun up to and including regular restoration (ala the way the brits might approach the issue). Or never touching the gun except for regular maintenance in order to retain as much "original" character as possible (ala the current American collector ethos). I think the brits have it right. A gun is a gun in their eyes and therefore from their perspective, the guns they have are maintained to the highest standard. The value of the gun is maintained or perhaps increased because the gun is MAINTAINED in ORIGINAL condition, or so the prevailing opinions of the British gun culture might posit. In my humble opinion, it makes sense that a gun would be maintained to an original state. The addition and retaining of wear, use, or love marks can be considered by heirs or collectors depending on provenance, historical importance, or personal and emotional ties to the gun. Collectors and the market at large could determine value on a case to case basis. Coincidentally, this might attach a sense of importance to the maintaining of records for all gun owners (a trait I'll bet we all wish was common among the previous caretakers of our guns). Otherwise guns in the mainstream would be looked upon as items to be cared for to the fullest extent. A paradigm shift that might help current would-be heirlooms last for generations. If our gun culture looked at its guns in this manner, perhaps there wouldn't be so many misused, neglected guns out there. I for one would prefer that more parkers had made it to the present day, and would gladly sacrifice any current equity in my guns to make that wish come true.
I understand both sides of this argument, and agree with points from both camps. The point I make here reflects my wishes for what has happened and my hopes for what might happen. Obviously, however these are merely MY opinions and are certainly apt to be as flawed as I am at times.

Unfortunately, for we Americans, we can't send our Parkers back to the maker every year or two for routine maintenance and freshening like the Brits do... So, if we want our Parkers refinished, restored, freshened and maintained we need to seek out an "expert" in this field. An awful lot of Parkers have been spoiled (and their $ value diminished) by trusting the wrong "expert" to perform the work.
As I stated before, the real experts are infinitely few but there are quite a few gunsmiths who think they are.

The pad is an easy decision, a new Silvers installed just as the original and the original retained with the gun. After getting two sets of barrels back from Dale recently I wondered about the potential in these.

It,s not that I can't hit anything with it I just never see anything to shoot at when I'm hunting with it:eek:

It took a year to get this I'm not going to part with it for quite a while.

That's a dandy little CH Rich. Aside from the pad, I don't think I'd rush into anything else in the way of restoration or refinishing.

That's a close cousin to Bruce Day's but his has the roundelle engraving style.

Rich, that is a wonderful and beautiful Parker.
I'm with you on swapping the pad. You don't want that original pad falling apart on you from continued use. Put it away and stick a nice new replacement on it. The new pad will be more pliable and thus easier on your stock and shoulder.
I don't know how the finish is on the rest of the barrel but the breech end looks very nice.
Unless they're freckled like a redheaded Dutch girl, I'd be hard pressed to redo them. (No offense to freckled redheaded Dutch girls, I think they are special and beautiful, I just don't like my barrels rusty and freckled.)