West Coast Parkers
 

As I was sitting at an outdoor patio enjoying lunch in downtown Los Angeles this fine afternoon I found myself wondering how many Parkers found there way out out here.

Would love to hear from those of you out this way...I assume you don't run across as many vintage double collectors or guns themselves as we do on the east coast?

I hope a bunch of them will come to Vegas in January

i have 2 hammer 8 ga s that came from california..both guns were shipped in a lot of 6 8 ga s all of them built the same configuration sent to san fransisco...it was a luck of fate that they got back together again after being apart for way over a hundred years...charlie...

Back in the day, many of the Hollywood luminaries were buying fine doubles to go with their Duesenbergs -- Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Carol Lombard, Joan Bennett, Leland Hayward, Andy Devine, Robert Stack, etc. Edwin Hedderly the editor of Western Field, and later a member of the California Game Commisssion had a number of long barrel Parker Bros. smallbores. Then there were all those long barrel 20-gauge Parker Bros. going to members of those Central Valley duck clubs, most famous being the Widgeon Duck Club. In the A.H. Fox records we see a lot of guns going to Wm. H. Hoegee Co., Inc. Los Angles and B.H. Dyas, in Hollywood. C.T. "Buck" Buckman the great California Quail hunter used a number of Parkers including the legendary 28-gauge A1-Special two barrel set. There were some very nice doubles at Kerr's Sport Shop in Beverly Hills when I checked it out as a young Navy E3 in 1969, including a long barrel Ithaca NID No. 7E 20-gauge. A few years later, when I was shooting NSSA registered skeet at Winchester West at Long Beach, a gentleman parked next to me and in the trunk of his Buick Electra 225, were four leg-of-mutton cases with his 12-, 20-, 28-gauge and .410-bore Winchester Model 21 Skeet Guns.

I think California got its share of doubles. The California Side-by-Side Society is very active and hosts some great events. I attended one in 2014 --

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PGCA member Jim Thynne & his partner Jerry Kitto ran a very nice gun shop in west Covina Ca. called Ivory Beads.

They always had a nice selection of Parkers & other doubles in the shop along with Robert Stack's shooting vest hanging over the back of a chair.

I bought my near new DHE20 a couple years ago from one of our San Francisco members.

I bought two beavertail forends for 12 ga. high grade Parkers from a gun shop in So. Cal. about ten years ago. I bought them about two or three months apart. Both of them had serial numbers in the 242XXX range. I can't imagine how they ever became separated from their respective guns.






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I have a 32", 16ga., VHE which was shipped in 1919 to Ellery Arms. Co., SF, Ca.

My hammer 8, which I no longer own, was part of a 4 gun order to California in 1892. To San Francisco, I think. In just these 2 orders, mine and Charlie's, 10 8 gauges went to Cal. 2 1/2percent of total production.

Taking my 6 frame PH 10 with 32 inch barrels - shipped to Olympia Washington in 1909 - to Rock mountain today. This west coast Beast will be grinding up some clays!!!:cheers: