Here you go Chuck - your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to search all of the production books up to serial number 24821 to discover if the term “underlifter” or “U” was ever used by the scribes who recorded all of the guns produced.






.

Edgar, being clearly in the “Action” column, what else could the “U” POSSIBLY represent?

I dearly wish Charlie Price was still with us, certainly for many, many reasons but he’s the man who could put an end to this.



.

I can't answer your question. The four authors of The Parker Story, tabulated the guns, in each grade section, as "Lifter-Action" (in one case, just 'Lifter') "Top-Action", and "Hammerless".
Price, The only one of the four original Authors, co-authored the serialization book with Fjestad, and only in that publication is the "U" used to describe the type of action.
So, Who made the decision to use the letter "U" ? Why not "L" ? Certainly not because 'L' could be confused with 'Laminated', because they aren't the same table column, just as "U" is in the Action column, but there IS a documented use of the letter in the grades of gun.

Charlie Price and Bill Furnish used the term “Underlifter” frequently in their communications about hammer guns with this kind of action. I think Charlie was as well-versed in Parker hammer guns as probably anyone else in the country.





.

I think we've all used the expression, but it's just a colloquialism. If The records don't yield evidence that is what it means, and TPS certainly offers no support for the argument, then there ya go. Communications between two people, especially when one of them may have been the originator of the U, sounds more like, simply, his own interpretation.

I'm not convinced that your opinion is correct Edgar. There HAS to be a reason that the "U" was put in the Action column. There IS an answer someplace and it will turn up, just as the meaning of the "OV" designation for the Trojan will someday turn up.





.

All that aside, The original question was referring to the stamping on the watertable. Since no other type of action existed at the time that gun was made, why the need to stamp the action type. What other gun ever had any stamping that identified the type of action?

Of course there HAS to be a reason the U appears in the 'Action column', but that doesn't mean that reason originated with Parker Brothers.