Gents,
I know what I would spend my money on if I was tiger woods. Man thoes are some sexy lifters..................ch MERRY CHRISTMAS 1st epistle john 1/ 7-10

OK, OK, a few more. See the wood photo? Its a $250 dollar grade.

The hammer guns include a 16 lifter and the 20 top lever.

These were displayed at the last Pheasant Fest and will likely be shown again in Feb at Des Moines if people want to see them. The rack of guns is from the last PF.

Grading Parkers with 4 digit serials
 

The 0 to 6 number grading system that is stamped on most exposed hammer frames was formalized sometime after s/n 10000. The engraving and checking patterns of those grades remained in flux until hammerless production began.
TSP initiated the term "Dollar Grade" to describe grades of guns prior to the first Parker catalogs. These "Dollar Grades" are based on price lists issued in the 1870's. The $250 grade was the highest on most of these lists, and a $60 or $80 grade usually lowest, but surcharges were added for pistol gips and ten gauge guns. The lists began with two damascus barreled guns at $ 250 and 200, and twist or gun iron grades at less than $100. A middle $135 damascus grade was added along way. There was at least on "reduced price list" that had the $200 grade as the highest grade.
More to follow

Best, Austin

16ga. Note the downwardly angled thumb groove on the original stock.

20ga

Here is a graded lifter gun, a 12 ga. 'C'

Dollar Grades
 

The $135 grade had a three point bow tie pattern of fore end checking and a little engraving on the locks; it is relatively easy to follow the $135 grade evolution to the grade 2 and finally G. I suggested this as an interesting collecting niche in a DGJ article.
Larry's sketches show that frame sculpture around the breech defines the highest grades. The complex pattern he shows, with engraving in the recesses and on the high points should represent the highest grade. It appears though that engravers and price list publishers were not syncronized, and the most engraving may have appearred on $200 grades at times.
Larry also shows frame sculpture with no internal rib and no recess engraving. A photo of a 1000 range gun with this sculpture is attached. These guns also had the dog's head silhouette engraved on the frame that continued on 3 grade guns through the 15000 plus serial range We associate all this with later 3 grade guns; but there is no intermediate grade in the price lists of the time.
The guns above the $135 grade carried a multi diamond fore end checking pattern as shown. This pattern was initially necessitated by the cross slide attachement hardware, but continued through hammerless introduction.
High grade hammer, lock and frame sculpture and engraving continued to evolve throughout exposed hammer production. My own opinion is that this reached its pinnacle with the guns delivered to St Louis shown in the hammer article in Parker Pages.
When did the grade three evolve? It certainly existed but does not appear to have been cataloged. This again raises the question of collecting philosophy; should the archive regulate collectability or should it be the quality of the gun?

Merry Christmas;

Austin

Here is another graded lifter, a 12 ga 'G'

The guys who don't read the hammergun threads REALLY missed out on this one! What beautiful guns and interesting reading. Thanks everyone and Merry Christmas to you all.

In my opinion Austin, a gun's collectibility should stand on the merit of it's own quality and condition but certainly grade should dictate catagory by some degree.

And thank you for that data. Dean