Dean, we were at the Parker annual meeting in Binghamton 4-5 years back and the vote for "best of show" was happening. I saw 2-3 that I thought were amazing. You saw one that to me was rather normal and you said, "That's an all original untouched Parker that's what you want to see." I just saw a Parker. I asked how you knew and you said, "It takes years of touching and feeling to know and learn." That's all well and good but without someone at your side you can ASSUME you're assessing originality when in fact you're learning all the wrong stuff. If you had you picked up that gun and laid it side by side with another I thought was perfect and showed me how you knew the bluing was off, how the finish was not original, how you knew the case color had been done wrong, how the checkering was not correct I could have shaved a year off the curve. That, Dean, is invaluable so I would argue that if you have that knowledge you share it face to face rather than saying, "You gotta look at a lot of guns." I'm not naive to think you don't also have to study guides and TPS, of course you do. It's like shooting a clay target and missing it 50 times and then an instructor walks up and says, "No, you shoot that as a crosser, not a dropper" and the light bulb goes off. Hands on instruction is how physicians, craftsmen and others learn quicker at the beginning of the curve. Nobody has ever said, "Go pound a lot of nails, that's how you become a better carpenter." Somebody shows them. This organization is getting older and if people don't hand off this knowledge face to face it may die for these guns. Maybe I'm a slow learner but I don't think so. And I will take to the bank my feeling that there are a lot of "original" Parkers out there that are very much touched and the owners then wonder why they don't get the price they want back out of them. I became a fan of this group because of Don Mills. He reached out to me and offered some assistance on this forum and asked me to call him. He gave me one or two pointers about buying a Parker, small stuff that stuck. You gotta pay it forward.

All valid points Andy and I have no arguments with any of them. All I can offer is that whenever we’re together at some venue or event and there is a Parker you may have questions about, please ask for my opinions and to demonstrate how I arrived at them. I am always more than happy to share anything I know.
Trust me, I am no guru in these matters but I have taken a very keen interest in learning and remembering what I’ve learned.
There are several collectors whom I look up to as true guru’s or sensei’s.
I’ve said it before… I learn something new everyday.

But you’re right Andy and I’ve said this too… a lot of us are aging out of this and soo much experience will be lost… even if we share what we know.



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Thank you Dean. I am not saying hands on and time aren't needed, but I will sure take you up on it. Hope to make it to Sanford this year and leave with something else in tow.

I hope Dorothy and I can attend the Southern this time.





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