Welcome!! Just have fun and enjoy the gun. Remember they were meant to be used, not reside in a safe. Use it.

Does anyone know where I can get a nice fitted case for this w/o spending a fortune. I'm looking for something svelt and compact that will accommodate the short barrels. Most of the cases I'm seeing are made to fit much longer barrels. Used is fine too!

BTW: I just ordered two flats of 2-1/2" 16ga. shells!

Kingston to answer Q 2, Kf replaced markings for barrel steel during the time your gun was made. As to Q1 and 2 others may have theories.
Welcome,
Erick

For. A case, try Jeffs outfitters

Gunner, I respectfully disagree with your explanation of the missing barrel steel stamp.
Thousands of guns produced both before and after 1906 have the barrel steel stamped on the forward end of the right barrel flat. And both Charles A. King's stamp along with the barrel steel stamp appear on most guns of the period, from what I've witnessed.





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I looked at Jeff's, but was hoping for something for shorter barrels.

Thanks for the recommendation though.

It works.

http://a66.tinypic.com/ixcyfk.jpg

For a case you may want to go to our " Members List " find Patrick Lien and send him a PM ,Pat seems to always have a nice assortment of cases for sale ! He's a nice Fellow to deal with ,if you like you could say I mentioned his name on our site for you to contact ! By the way ,A very nice first Parker !!!!!!!!!

Whenever I hear or read about a short barrelled gun I think of Gene Hill's The Woodcock Gun..."How I'd like to know the man that had it made! He must have been an independent Yankee cuss. I'll bet it was the only 24-inch side-by-side in all New England. There must have been some laughs and jokes around the cider mill when he first showed it off!"

Like my Grandfather asked about a Model 12 with a poly choke on it. He asked the owner what he needed all that plumbing on the end for? Of course he shot everything from squirrels to bobcats with a four ten until he was up in his 70's and said it just didn't shoot right anymore. A donation of a 20 Browning provided a little wider pattern and his new bifocals helped a little too. He would have said a gun with 24 inch barrels should not have been cut like that, no one would have ordered such a thing!