Parker Gun Collectors Association Forums - Damascus, Twisted and Laminated

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dean Romig (Post 430070)

Art, on all of the guns that received Parker-made Laminated Steel barrel they were marked as such on the top rib but the legend on the top rib gave no indication that the barrel tubes were made in-house. The identification mark that indicated such was the P with the ‘broken foot’ stamped on the forward area of the right barrel flat where the steel type is normally found.

Parker Bros. knew what kind of barrel steel they were putting on any particular gun - no mistake there.
The confusion stems from the person or persons recording the features of the guns.
We often see in our research letters that these guns that received Parker-made Laminated Steel barrels that they were recorded as “Damascus” and this (to us) is wrong… but unfortunately, we can’t change history.
And Chuck includes in his letters exactly what the factory recorded in the stock books and order books.

.

Dean

I agree totally with the barrel comment. I have three higher grade guns and they have Parker laminate barrel properly marked on the flats. They are all 1878 or later. I just re-read the section of the TPS on Grades. These three guns were later than the period when "Quality" and "Dollar Grade" were a real issue. All three are marked Laminate on the rib (I didn't say the ribs were marked as Damascus). All three action flats are marked D2 or D3, meaning the actions were intended to be used on Damascus guns of either G or D grade. The serialization book lists the guns as the same designation. If the gun had been intended to be sold as a Lam3, my reading of the system indicates it should have been marked L3. The research letters indicate that the guns were sold with Laminate barrels and were of the appropriate grade.

Here is where the unknown raises it's head. After a study of a couple of years and noting a dozen or more guns where this is the case, I have come to the opinion that this is not a mistake at the factory. Yes, there are obviously mistakes in the records, but with only 200-300 of these barrels likely made, this would be an instance of mistakes made in a significant percentage of the total run of barrels. I have a hard time believing that. The orders would have to state "Give me a Damascus grade 3 gun with Parker Laminate barrels" and then it would likely be noted in the research letter.

There is much existing evidence that Parker made a big push for these barrels. They advertised them and their reps put out statements about the fact. They had invested significant company capital. Based on the total info and records available, I believe Parker intended them to be a product equal to the high priced Damascus grades, and used them as an alternative form of Damascus while they were making them. I have seen and watched guns for sale as high as D5 grade guns with Parker lam barrels. A member on this board purchased one I was watching, I was informed. Your original belief that the bulk of them were used on higher grade guns may be correct, they just were not used on high Lam grade guns. They in fact were quite often used on high grade Damascus guns and sold as such, with the Laminate barrels only being noted in the production records.

We can quote the system for marking all we want (and I just reviewed it) and tell ourselves that there were mistakes, but you have to keep in mind the money they had just spent on it, the pride they took in doing it, and the fact that they had to recognize their folly within a year of starting and judge their actions based on that. It had to be a very short time from startup until management recognized that they were not going to be able to make their own barrels at any appreciable rate or acceptable cost, and pulled the plug on the whole thing before the specs could be revised.

Yes, the guns as sold did not meet their marking standards at the time, but the unanswerable question is whether the factory operators made a lot of mistakes or whether the actual practice deviated from the specs because the barrel issue did not last long enough to revise their specs. My personal opinion is that the latter is true.

There are a lot of issues in the Parker world similar to this. The 11 vs 12 gauge issue is similar. Very few 11 ga guns are shown in the Serialization book, but every year there are several 11 ga guns reported, based on barrel measurements and chamber dimensions. These generally always occur in early guns when the standard 12 ga used 11 ga tubes. This is discussed at length in TPS and even quotes the exact date and entry in the record book when the 12 gauge was standardized to the current size and notes that the 9 vs 10 ga issue was about a month later. There were a number of people working together on this book for years. It is hard to imagine they all made a mistake, but now no one can find the record and we are still at an impass on the 11 ga issue.

The bottom line is that there are records missing and like any company I am sure Parker did things internally at the direction of management that were never documented externally, or were lost to history.