You have a treasure that should only be handled by an esteemed auction house like RIA, Morphy's, Bonham & Butterfield's, or Amoskeag - any of which draw the elite among gun collectors and will procure for you the very highest bids possible for such an important artifact in the world of collectible antique firearms.... You would be ill-advised to do otherwise!





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Thank you for that info. I have been in touch with Josh Lowensteiner from Morphy's and he is going to be on the west coast in early May to look at the gun and discuss further my options.
Thanks,
John

Would love to see pictures and a copy of the letter.

Aurthur du Bray’s 28 gauge BHE #97426
 

I owned #97426 a BHE 28 Gauge ..... during the time The Parker Story was being written...

I sent photographs to be published in the book

However since the gun was an exceedingly early 28 gauge
..straight grip
... Titanic Fluid Steel barrels #97426 1901?

and was equipped with
Automatic ejectors....

The photographs of the gun were returned to me unpublished
As at the time, the order books for that year had not yet been discovered
And the authors of the Parker Story were unable to verify the guns originality
....My guess is it was suspect because it was too early to be a 28 gauge

It seems likely to me, that upon the return of that salesmans sample 28 Guage by Mr. du Bray to the Parker Factory

The ejectors were likely added by the factory or had actually, in fact- been original to the gun, as this is one of the first 28 gauge fluid steel guns ever built

And it was clearly intended to be shown with all the “modern amenities” as it had been Mr. du Bray’s sales tool....

To add further interest, I acquired the gun in the late 1980s
....out of the Cincinnati Ohio area

Sadly, I no longer own the gun, however, I have some very nice digital photographs which I will hope to find and upload in the next week or so...

The engraving is a very unique and gorgeous deep relief

...almost in the expression of the first A1 special

Kevin, Welcome to the PGCA forum.

We’re so pleased that you chose to share this information with us and we eagerly await your pictures.

Have you since sent for a research letter on 97426 ?





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I think my research shows 97428 to be one of the first 28 gauges. The research material was published in the Parker Pages a few years back and discussed on this forum. My research did not include 97,426.

Any idea where 97426 resides these days?

:corn:

Yes; my notes from researching "Grandma's 28" (GH Damascus 28 ga.) show 94373 as the first 28 ga. made, appearing in the Order Books (Stock Book for that SN missing so production date is not exact but would predate January 1900). Interestingly enough, the first half dozen 28s were Grade 3 and Grade 5 guns.

I sure would like to see an early Grade 5 28

Me too Mills!

I would be interested in any link to the above mentioned discussion

Hoping to upload a few pictures soon....

Kevin, in searching in our Parker Pages Digital Archive I find the article "Early 28 Gauge Parkers" by Dave Suponski, Bill Murphy and Mark Conrad shown on page 44 of Vol. 16, Issue 2 (Summer 2009) but when I go to page 44 there is an article by Dave Suponski on original Parker Brothers case hardening.

I'm sure I can find the Early 28 Gauge Parkers article but it's going to take a lot more research.

This is the very first glitch I have ever found in the Digital Archive and it may not even be a problem with the archive but rather it may have originated with the publisher Village Press.





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The PP article has serial numbers listed for early 28s. The article did not include all of my research, but it did include most of it.

Okay - Going on the premise that the error was created by the publisher I went and dug out my hard copy of Issue 2 of Vol 16 and looked at the table of contents and they are exactly as shown in the Digital Archive (which I thoroughly expected to be so) so the next step was to page through the entire magazine and I found the publisher had transposed the two articles and the "Early 28 Gauge Parkers" article was in fact published on page 47.

As Bill says, some of the very earliest 28 gauge serial numbers are listed in the article.

The Parker Pages Digital Archive is available to PGCA Members for $50 and back issues of Parker Pages are available from PGCA Life Member James Hall.





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Posting error

So, whatever happened with the the DuBray grade 7 hammer gun?

I sent you a PM Mike.





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The earliest serial numbers for 28 gauge Parkers is as follows from the article by Dave, Bill and Mark...

94373
95000
95420
95421
95422
95426
95428
95431
97027
97031
97032
97033
97034
97036
97037
97038
97170
97426
99181
99599
99600
99686
99687
100303
101329
102155
102156


Some of these may have been rebarreled 20 gauge guns. We don't have all the data on all of them.





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You're missing 99686 & 99687, which were an identical pair of 24" VH guns.. They were the first 24" 28ga. guns made. They were ordered by H&D Folsom in 1900, and delivered to a "Mister Currier" in 1901

Yes. I was hoping to see pictures.

Thanks Edgar - I made that edit to my list. Those two were not in Dave's article and I'm glad you brought them up.

If anyone else knows of very early 28 gauge Parkers not included in this list please let me know and I'll insert them so we can have a complete list to be able to refer to.





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Here ya go Todd. It is a real beauty. Taken with my cell phone in a motel so it is not the best pic, not the worst either.

I wrote and published a very complete article beginning on pg. 25 in Parker Pages Fall, 2018 (Vol. 25, Issue 3) on this gun with loads of very high quality pictures.





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Any idea why 95,000 & 94520 are listed as 12ga. guns in the serialization book?

Thanks Dean. I'll have to look that up.

I had remembered that 95,428 was in my list from the article. 95,426 doesn't appear.

Dean's list, which Edgar added to, was never intended to be a complete list. In the Dave Suponski article, he (Dave) included an incorrect and incomplete list of "the first ten 28 gauge guns" provided by Austin Hogan. The list was only of ten early 28 gauge guns, and not anywhere near the first ten. I don't know how Austin's random list got into the article. My research on the first 28 gauge orders was included in the article and begins at the bottom of the first column and continues to the end of column two and was my only submission for that article. The mention of 97,426 was included by the author of the article and was not part of my research. As I stated before, my research is not claimed to be complete and further numbers may come up when missing order and stock books are discovered as well as the guns themselves. The first orders I discovered were February 6, 13, and 20, 1900. These were the earliest orders I found by date, not neccesarily by serial number.
There could be earlier orders in a corresponding order book, but I don't know whether that is true or not.

Bill, I just edited my list with the addition of 95426





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Right Bill, the list is incomplete but not through anyone’s fault, but simply a result of whether available knowledge was included, or not, in the article Dave authored.
If anyone can add a serial number to the list I created here please let me know and I’ll edit the list with the addition of forthcoming serial numbers.

And just like we in the world of Parkers “never say never” we also must recognize that in our world of Parkers, our Parker knowledge will “always” continue to grow.





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The Austin Hogan list is a random list of early serial numbers, by no means the earliest or first. I am not sure how Dean's list was compiled, but, as Edgar mentions, it includes a couple of 12 gauge guns. Or not, refer to later posts.

Edgar, in Dave's article he lists 95000 as a possibly rebarreled 20 gauge and and 95420 as a 28 gauge ordered by Shoverling, Daly and Gales on Feb. 6, 1900.

The appearance of 94520 on the list was a keystroke error by me and has since been corrected.





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Dave did not list 95,000 as a possible rebarrel of a 20 gauge. He made the statement that 28 gauges between 94,000 and 95,000 were possible rebarrels. He did not list 94,000 or 95,000 as individual guns, only a range of serial numbers. By the way, my 97,032 is in the February 20, 1900 William Wagner order that includes the seventh through the tenth known 28 gauges. It is quite a nice VH, formerly owned by famous gun dealer and Parker collector Norman Strebe, shot on a regular basis. Norman's business was a mile or less from the William Wagner store.

Nit-picking Bill?...

If he had listed 9400X to 9500X I could agree with you but IMO where specific serial numbers are written then those two serial numbers are included in the range of guns that may possibly have been rebarreled to 28 gauge.

No offense intended my friend.





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Apparently, (and obviously) Mr. Sexson's only interest in coming to this forum was to establish a value and sell the Grade 7 gun. Admittedly, his first post spoke to that intention.
I think it a bit rude that he never followed up on the forum to post pictures or update those that took an interest and offered help. After the sale of the firearm he could have updated the forum and thanked all that helped.
I wonder if the gun sold through Josh or if it went to an auction house.
Dean, I'm going to go through my back issues of Parker Pages to see your story and pictures of the gun.

David, it was just a few days ago when he stated he intended to post up pictures of the other gun (not the grade 7 hammer gun) and I think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt and wait another week or so before we disparage his intentions. When he first came on with this very thread four years ago he really didn’t know how our web forum was set up and we know most newcomers here rarely read the small print about gun sales and trolling… and he’s definitely not a troll but a genuine aficionado of duBray’s Parker.
And I’m willing to wait several weeks for pics of the BH 28 in the hope that we haven’t scared him away.


Oops… Mr. Finnerty offered to post pics of the 28 gauge BHE, not Mr. Sexton. My mistake?



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Yes Dean, your mistake. I was speaking only of Mr Sexson.
Mr. Sexson never responded after the 8th day of his joining the PGCA and never renewed his membership. Once he got the info and contacts he needed, he never added anything else.
I too am looking forward to pictures of Mr. Finnerty’s BHE 28 ga.

Regarding the pigeon competition trophy that duBray won, this is the only picture of it that Mr. Sexson ever sent me in preparation for the article. Unfortunately, due to space limitations, it was only published in Parker Pages as a 1" x 1" image on the page.

Triple click on image for full enlargement.

Credit to Morphy Auctions for the picture of the gun.


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Another one of Arthur du Bray’s tempting “sales tools”

This one a Rare 28 Gauge Straight Grip BHE #97426

Likely one of the First Titanic Steel 28 Gauge BH Grade Parkers ever built....

Lots of details to discuss...

And I’m sure some controversy and “Intellectual Parker Banter” will follow..

Enjoy,

And imagine an appointment to shoot with Captain du Bray
...back in the Fall of 1900

A fabulous gun - Thank-you Kevin!





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An amazing gun!