Do the checkered stock cheeks look original? Overall the gun looks almost unfired. How about pics of the breech faces, tables, and bbl flats? And the muzzle and pad. This really is a gorgeous piece that looks was oiled up good and stored for decades untouched. I bet that oil in the screw slots is nearly fossilized.

I have a similar DH that has more color and sharper engraving than that, and bbl finish about the same but the wood is nowhere near that pretty and clean and I paid significantly more for it than $2k, and before the current gun craze sent prices through the stratosphere too. I think you did very well. And the 3" drop makes it more attractive to me... I love 3"DAH. Chokes are perfect also. The stock looks like one that might be seen on a C grade.

Here are some more pics. . .

I'm far from an expert on Parkers as this is only my third, and as I mentioned previously, I don't have access to TPS to compare with pics. That said, I'll try to answer some of your ?s in turn:

I believe the checkered panels are original. I scrutinized them very carefully to see if there was an old head pinning I was missing, but happily saw none. I'll have to get a ruler to count LPI, but it does look a bit finer than the checkering on the wrist and forearm.

Gun has definitely been fired, just looks well taken care of. I'm guessing it got put up (and correctly) many years ago. The right breech face shows more evidence of being shot than the left-no pitting at all, just a little more tarnished for lack of a better description. Owner must've been a good shot! There is also some burnishing on the top tang where the lever rubbed some high points when opened.

Muzzle is great, good blacking of the exterior bbls up to the last 1/8" or so. The wedge/keel and solder is all there and bbls touch. The rib matting stops just short of the muzzle as I understand it is supposed to. The front bead looks original. In the pics there looks like scoring in the muzzles-that's just the lighting.

Water table and bbl flats look approp and the damascus pattern carries well along the length of the bbls except is fainter where the forearm rests.

A few more. . .

And some more. . .

Just a few more

last couple. . .

Where else are you going to get that kind of wood and hand-engraving for what you paid? Nice gun.

William, this gun is likely to letter with the checkered cheeks. It was not unusual for informed buyers of Parkers to specify "Check side of stock, same as $200 grade." Get a letter from PGCA to confirm. The gentleman selling this gun is our neighbor at a local gun show, but it is hard to pin him down to a reasonable price on his internet offerings. You stood your ground and bought the gun for less than many internet lurkers would have been willing to pay. It is a questionable strategy that is sure to benefit the ultimate buyer more than it does the seller.

Ed,
That is exactly the question I asked myself when I saw it--from the standpoint of a Parker neophyte, the DH damascus guns must represent one of the best values going.

Bill,
Thanks for the insight on both the checkered panels and the seller. I never spoke directly with the owner; in addition to the GB listing, it was sitting on consignment at a tiny local shop. I happened to pull up GB two days before and saw what looked like a clean old Parker in a configuration I liked. Fortunately, it was a short-ish trip for me and worse case I knew it would be a pretty drive. A family friend who deals in antiques and decoys told me once to never ask what someone's lowest price was as that gives the seller time to think what they have in it, etc.--simply set cash down, which is what I did. Shop owner told me guy had 2500 on it--I brought 20, 100 dollar bills and was prepared to walk away. When we got the owner on the phone, he wouldn't go below 2100 and I turned my pockets out. We checked to make sure there were no bids on GB, which there weren't, and the shop ate the $100 on their commission to make the sale.

I certainly don't claim any savvy in this, was just lucky that the gun happened to be listed locally so I could inspect it first-hand. The gun pretty much sold itself and we all know how hard it is to gamble on pictures. Also, the ad mentioned that a chip was glued back in to the left of the top tang, undoubtedly turning lots of folks off. It turned out it was just a line of fossilized oil which had run back from the action. I was able to chip a bit of it off w/ my finger nail confirming the wood was all sound.

As an aside, I remember reading that checkering can be safely cleaned out with a soft toothbrush moistened in Murphy's Oil Soap--I'd like to degunk the side panels a little. Is this okay to do?

Cheers,
Bill

That is an outstanding piece of French walnut. $1000 for such a stock blank today before shaping.
I've long advocated that damascus Parkers are one of the great values in fine shotguns today. If you can get past the initial trepidation of shooting them, you will very much appreciate these guns. I sometimes use stout loads as the gun was originally intended for, although I realize many do not.
Yes, clean out the checkering. You may find you have deeper checking than you think.

So, let's see, the damascus D above or the following?