A letter will not provide information on remington era repairs.

Unfortunately the Remington IBM cards and codes ‘never’ indicate the service or repair work done and a PGCA Research Letter can’t provide that information if it’s not in the factory records.





.

As Brian and Dean have indicated, a PGCA research letter will only reflect how it left the factory, and any subsequent work Parker performed. Since it’s quite unlikely the carving and engraving was done by Parker, that work would not be addressed.

Ralph, your research letter went in the mail today. Unfortunately the information contained in the letter is only based on the stock book entry, the order books ended in December 1919. Any special work asked for would have been entered in the order book.

It's a SB grade gun. The engraving on the action is original. I can't tell if the case colors are original but based on the case colors on the fore-end iron, I don't think they are. The engraving on the barrel is not of the quality that either guns manufactured in Meriden or Ilion NY. Looks very large and not like the rest of the scroll engravings. The fore-end and stock may or may not be original. The carving has a definite Germanic style. I don't see a mullard boarder on the checkering. The nose flute looks good but the best way to tell if the wood is original is to separate the metal from the fore-end wood and lift the trigger guard tang out of it's channel and rotate it 1/4 turn CCW. You should see the S/N's stamped in the wood plus a #5 stamped in the trigger guard channel. Personally I don't think the wood is original to the gun.

Unfortunately we don't know what the Remington repair codes mean, we only know the month and year the gun was returned for service.

If your pleased with the gun, that's all that counts. Go out and shoot it, that's what it was made for and before you ask, as long as the barrel is within specs, you can shoot any modern trap load.

Good chance the extra engraving on the barrel and the stock carving were done in Germany and there are two likely scenarios -- 1. Pachmayr sent it to West Germany to be done. 2. A U.S. service man had it done while stationed in West Germany.

Or did Pachmayr have in-house craftsmen who would do that?





.

I doubt Pachmayr did the work; too crude. I had dealings with their engravers: Richard Boucher, Geno Cargnel, Angelo Bee, & their stockmaker Engilbert Olafsson who I learned stockmaking from. Englebert besides being an excellent stockmaker was an excellent carver.

It is a beautiful and unique Parker SB, that I bought at an estate sale, through my local gun shop, along with a few Browning Superposes. I did not think it was original at the time, but it was a good deal and I did not have a Parker SB. I am now planning on shooting it and comparing it to my Browning BT-99.

Thanks for all the information you provided, on this unique Parker SB,

Ralph

Tell us about your Superposed purchases.

I’m betting you will love shooting this SB.