Today I received my Parker letter for my gun #111377. It was ordered by the Charles Parker Co of NY on October 11, 1902 and shipped on October 24, 1902. It appears the configuration is all original, down to the Lyman beads and the initials on the shield (W and RH modified).
The specifications requested a weight of 7 pounds, 14 ounces.
Questions:
1. Who was The Parker Co of NY. Any affiliation to The Parker Brothers, the gunmaker?
2. Did they keep a stock of semifinished guns in various configurations in order to be able to meet client demand and deliver the gun order so fast?
3. Would a 12 gauge of such weight be considered rather heavy? What do you think its owner intended to use it primarily for?
4. If steel barrels were available in 1902, would would the order request damascus steel?
5. Wonder what would $100 in 1902 would be equivalent to today in order to determine its cost in today's value of money.
Thank you. BillK

1. The Charles Parker Co of NY was the retail store for Parker Bros. in NYC. 2. I'm sure they did but mostly in the lower grades. 3. Most 12ga. guns weighed in the 7 to 8 pound range. We don't know the choking on this gun but since it wasn't specified in the order, it was probably full/full or modified/full and could have been used for hunting. Both Damascus and Fluid steel were available. The customer evidently wanted Damascus. 3. Don't know but a D grade Parker wasn't cheep in 1902.

According to an online source, $100 in 1902 has the buying power of $2665 today.

And... with the Parker NYC store having sold this gun, and if sales records for that store and year are still available, the initials on this gun's stock oval could prove quite interesting. If they are those of the original buyer. Especially since not many people had that kind of money to spend on a shotgun in 1902.

Using tables from the Consumer Price Index, $100 in 1902 would be equivalent to $2840 in 2014 (latest year of info).

I think the $2800 figure, while it may be accurate, fails to take into account the vast change in values and spending habits that have occurred since 1902. Once you factor that in as well, I think a $100 purchase in 1902 is probably closer to a $5000 purchase today.

Interesting question. I went to the internet and found several pages that compute the answer but none of them went back farther than 1913. I think they all use Consumer Price Index to compute the answer and I'll bet the CPI records only go back to 1913.

Anyway, In these web pages it seems that $1 in 1913 equates to $23.95 in 2015. That is much more than I expected! But maybe?

Here is a link that explains how they compute this:
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/commu...or-information

Click on the "CPI calculator" link on that page to find the tool to calculate for other years if you want to play.

Considering Parkers were made, engraved and fitted by hand a Parker would cost significantly more today than it did then and that would not take into consideration the damascus barrels which stopped being produced in the early 1900's.

Robin, go here: http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/