Historically, people with money and desire to acquire the best Parkers have sought high condition guns, high condition being defined as what a Parker looked like when new. Most restorations fall short and value has been reduced. I can privately point to specific situations where that has occured. When the restoration has been so exact and true to Parker standards at the time the gun was made, I have personally seen increases in value, and I mentioned several above. There are more, but it requires a level of skill that most restorers lack and for most restorations, the restoration is obvious, which has historically reduced value.

By the way, the Czar's gun, at $265,000 the highest selling Parker in history, was publicly disclosed to have a replaced stock. Value destroyed?

How you or I feel about it doesn't matter. If you want a sweat stained gun, the history in the market is that stains and significant use indications reduce value. Just watch the market and keep track of good guns for a number of years, I think you might reach the same conclusions. What you see here in this forum is only a small part of the Parker collecting community and I suggest to you that the top players who pay large sums do not hang on this forum.

Kensal,

You have to understand that Bruce travels in the Inner Circle of Parkerdom. He is parlay to insight and information neither you nor I could dream of having.


Destry

Great - one question answered - to leave it origional.

I wouldn't touch that gun in any way shape or form. The V grade replacement barrels might hurt it some but they are documented in the letter. What a great gun even without the original damascuss bbls. If it were mine I'd look for a set of 20ga damascuss bbls and have them fitted to the gun. There around I sold a set this summer. My one question relates to the checkered butt as a BH would have a skelton butt plate and I saw no mention of this in the letter.

Buce I much prefer the straight grip over a PG. I think they carry better and are faster to the shoulder. The straight grip guns outnumber the PG ones for me.

Good for you Eric. I can think of only ONE thing that I would ever even dream of doing to that gun and that would be to get the original barrels back if they are still in existence, and if they were in bad shape in some way, I'd have them refinished/restored by the very best, regardless of cost. And I'd keep both sets of bbls, of course, and get the gun into a very nice and well-fitted trunk case. That would make a stunning set.

Rich: if you look at the butt there are two plugged screw holes so it looks like it may have had a skeleton butt that was removed.

A lovely little BHE just the way it is. I'm glad you have made the decision to leave it as it is.
One wonders why the skeleton steel butt plate was removed...? The filled screw holes are plainly visible and the letter doesn't specify "no butt". That's not a problem in my opinion... just a curiosity.

I like straight grip guns too, but the market sure didn't.

I have a wonderful little 1904 CHE 16ga , really a sweet gun, but it was sent back in 1937 to have the original fine damascus barrels replaced by the latest Remington fluid steel barrels. They did them right with tapered rib, reinforced lug, double Lyman ivory beads, significant contour, 1910 bolt plate and bolt, and chokes at .012 and .033 but I'd sure like to find the damascus barrels. Probably ended up in a bomb casing.

The gun is not in bad condition as it is. Finishes are good and there are a good amount of case colors remaining. This gun should not be restored. It would take a lot of abuse and wear for this gun to get to needing a restoration.

Nice gun

A quote from Mr. Day:

"What you see here in this forum is only a small part of the Parker collecting community and I suggest to you that the top players who pay large sums do not hang on this forum."

I notice he certainly spends a lot of time here, but then again so do I. We both must be the kind of low end buyers / collectors of junk guns that frequent these sorts of internet forums.


DLH