First Parker is a 16g GH for me.
 

This circa 1897 Parker GH is my first Parker and I bought her to shoot it. She has 28 inch barrel’s choke tight at full x full as measured today. She’s had some restoration to the metal and the butt stock is not original. Overall I’m happy with the quality of the gun and I love the Damascus barrels which look great and have wall thickness to spare. Sharing these pics. Will get a letter on the gun soon.

William, that’s a very nice looking Parker. The case colors look very well done with a nice sheen and the barrels look good too.

Congrats on your ‘new’ Parker!





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Beautiful! Do you know who did the restoration work? I have a 16 with tight chokes that loves 7/8 oz of shot.

What a beauty! Stunning restoration.

I don’t know. Seller knew very little about the gun. I wonder if Turnbull would be able to tell me.

I have been able to email them in the past and if they did do the work they have provided the scope of work as well. Send them the make, model, and serial number and you should be good to go. Good luck, nice gun BTW.

It is an attractive gun with very accurate finishes used on the metal. If the case colors had a little more wear to them, they really could pass for original. And that is a very nice piece of wood for a G grade.

For educational purposes, to anyone who cares... The major cues to the gun being restored are how much case color there is in comparison to the amount of wear to the engraving. Also (this photo is not shown here, but I saw it on FB), the barrel finish is perfect but the breech face of the barrels have a lot of fine pitting that could not be removed when refinishing. Also, your checkering and borders are not quite right on the recut.

Overall an attractive gun that presents well. Good buy.

For a first Parker, you did well

All good points Brian. Thanks for the input. Your work is great by the way.

That's a great gun William, made more so being a 16 gauge. What is the frame size?

That pattern on those barrels is gorgeous, and very unique looking!!

I noticed it too. Looks almost laminated. Maybe Drew Hause will chime in here.

It isn’t Laminated, but is ‘Star Damascus’, one of the more common variety. The finish is something not often seen these days, somewhat darker.

Laminated Steel barrels are rarely seen on hammerless Parkers but was the barrel steel used on later Grade 1 top action Parker hammer guns.

Legh Higgins has a hammerless Parker lower grade with Laminated Steel barrels but were not supplied by Parker. His research letter says “use cust. barrels” so apparently the guy who ordered the gun had a set from a top action hammer gun... or maybe not even from a Parker.

This is Legh's gun showing nicely patterned Laminated Steel barrels. Oddly the rib says Damascus Steel and the barrel flat is stamped with a T for Twist, but they are clearly neither.

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A feature that some will note on this gun is the lack of a bead at the radius of the frame. This would continue onto the frame from the barrels and terminate to a point after about 1/4" on the frame.
This feature was done away with on Parkers below B grade in the 1920's, however this is a 1897 gun.

Now... I have also observed other earlier guns with lack of this bead. And they always seem to be 0 frame guns.
I have always scratched my head at why the factory decided to not file in this bead on only certain frames in those earlier days.