I'm not looking to start an argument...but any 'upgrade' IMO is affixed with two stigmas. (stigmae?)

1) You had to 'consume' an original gun of some other grade to make it. In a few cases, like the beautiful C that Brian Dudley made, that's no issue. But when you are consuming any .410 of any grade, that's not so cool.

2) We're faced with the same old issue that it's a gun that has been 'touched', and heavily so, by non-Parker hands. If a person is not on the time clock at Parker when it was done, it's not Parker work.

That's my .02....

Here's a question that interests me - are there any documented examples of Parker having 'upgraded' a gun? I'm gonna narrow this to the specific instance of taking a gun which had been already sold and used and sending it back out as a higher grade, at the request of a customer. My guess is no but I'd like to hear any examples.

I agree with Greg. I will say that Del Grego and Runge were both former Parker employees (or Remington) and so guns they produced or upgraded would be as close to factory upgrades as you could get. They are also "what could have been" if Remington had not discontinued Parker production and kept production going at high standards, with some allowance for variations over time.

Two good points, and a good question. I vaguely remember there being records of a returned gun for additional cosmetic work.

Mills says he agrees with Greg, but I can't see that agreement in his post. Maybe Mills doesn't quite read Greg's post correctly. I can see both sides. I have a baggo Del Grego guns, but I would rather they were originals. However, they aren't. Someone has to own them, and mine are out of this world.

Well, these are interesting guns but original is preferable. How is that?

I do not like them, and I have yet to see one I would like to have in my 'collection'. I have seen dozens over the years, on the walls of shops like the original Safari Outfitters, and have no recollection of having actually taken one down to fondle.
Pat Dugan's photos are perhaps the first 'Del Grego Gun' that I didn't dislike.
I have seen lots that had the firm's reworked, refinished, or replaced wood and did not form my opinion of the gun based on the wood, as it was usually good, or very good. There may have been a period where they had differing rust bluing techniques, but it has always come back to their case hardening practice that put me off. I guess if I'm being honest, I almost always equate cyanide hardening colors and DelGrego. It's very unfair of me to speak of the men, or their firm as I do, but I can't seem to disassociate the colors from the name. Does that make me a bad person?

my DelGrego 20 has soft cyanide case colors
but Asa Kelley and I bought one that was unfired 12 VH that had perfect screws that was lettered by The older DelGrego, in 1963.
It was the best example of deep cyanide tiger stripe colours that I have seen.
In 1984 went to see Otis Odom and there must have really been 1 million dollars of Parkers in his showroom. He at that time said he had sent hundreds of Parkers to the DelGrego family to refinish and upgrade.
He said most upgrades were done on small
gauges.

I wish I knew MORE about Otis but there are members that do and an article should be done on him

I remember my dad saying Otis was the nicest man he never met. They spent hours on the phone, back when long distance was by the minute. He bought two Parkers from Otis, and several from Pete Harvey and Gary Herman.
Back when Bypass Surgery was a new thing, my dad had a quadruple and Otis called him at the Hospital, when he learned he was still there after 4 weeks. Thinking he would be home in a week, only to spend almost two weeks in the ICU, he became very depressed. Otis, Gary, and Pete all called him, and I think they were the guys most responsible for his recovery. This was 20 years before the PGCA, and I wish our organization was around back then. Dad would be 100 today.

Several issues:

1. Del Grego's do not do their own color case hardening. They take them to a contractor in nearby Herkimer for cyanide process or more recently, to Turnbull for charcoal process if selected by the gun owner.
2. Case colors can be muted or removed by hand polishing over the course of an evening while watching television.
3. The color patterns of cyanide case colors depend on the technique of the person doing the work. Results range from near charcoal case colors to the discussed tiger stripes. The process uses a liquid bath and the tiger stripes result from multiple depth immersions. Similar to dyeing an Easter egg .

Art Wheaton recently wrote and had published an article on Odis Odom. I forget whether it was in Shooting Sportsman, Double Gun Journal, or where? The article described his and Jay Bunting's last visit to Odis and the purchase of a nice Parker they had been chasing from him.