Parker Internal Hammer Sidelock Gun
 

Something interesting for the experts.

A particularly fascinating mechanism. And perhaps one of a kind ! I'm most piqued by these aspects:

It appears to have been made up on a hammergun frame.
The tumbler axle is "split" in its mounting between the frame and lockplate.
The sear essentially "floats" separately as a part of the lockplate.
The firing pins are not integral with the tumblers per the boxlock design
The gun has a fishtail top lever for no apparent reason... other than one may have been handy?
What was the reasoning behind this? A higher-end "sidelock" Parker?
And... what time frame was it made???

Altogether, a VERY rare Parker indeed !!

All those are unknowns. We know only what we see.

However, if past posts are any indication, there is a member here who will have another like it at home, knows all about them and dozens more will have passed through his hands.

Did we see this gun at the 2014 Antique Arms Show in Las Vegas? If not, there was another one shown there.

We saw one at an early Gold Medal Concours, which could be the same gun. Who knows?

A gun exactly like this was on a table at Vegas last week. A picture was posted here someplace I can't remember the price.

Thanks very much Bruce. That's an excellent pictorial essay.

When looking at pictures 1 and 5 and enlarging it so I can read that patent date it looks like March 26, 1873 or 1875. In any case, I find no such patent date in The Parker Story listing of all known patent dates. This might indicate that whoever did this work patented it. Of course, I may be wrong about the date I read.

Very cool. Great material for a Parker Pages article

The serial number is in the S&I book as a grade 3 damascus top lever gun with no extras.
I would guess a very early and ingenious conversion to hammerless. Too bad the smith that did the work didn't sign it somewhere.

Must have been a gunsmith that was doing hammerless conversions on Parker hammer guns. I wonder who it was.

Very interesting indeed.

Similar in some ways to a cocking rod Lefever.