Early shipping methods
 

While replying to a post about Parker Gun cases I got to wondering what did Parker Bros ship the guns in before cardboard was used? I would assume a wooden crate. Whatever was used are there any pictures?

good question -cardboard was invented in England in the early 1800's - the corrugated version in 1856.

A google search says it was used for shipping by the 1870's. looks like they were made as precut boxes soon after and common in the US by the 1890s

i would assume as you have- prior to that- some form of wooden box- maybe returned for reuse and therefore not found as surviving pieces

Not long ago there were a few Parker wooden crates up in an auction.
I did not know enough about them to verify authenticity.

The one that interested me a lot was hand addressed on the crate to LeRoy, NY and had Meriden, CT railroad stamps on it. Bit there was no markings on it that I could see that confirmed that it actually came from Parker Brothers.

Probably not a good idea to mark Parker Bros. on the outside of a shipping crate.

I have the shipping box for my Ithaca NID No. 2 Super 10-gauge. It has a fancy Ithaca label picturing a No. 5E and the Railway Express label showing the purchaser had paid $30 down with his order and owed $27.50 cod. Different times.

In early summer of 1984 I was in the late Herschel Chadick’s gun shop in Terrell, Texas and he had an original wooden shipping crate from Parker Brothers. Inside of it was a cardboard box in which the gun was contained during shipment. The wooden crate had Parker Brothers return address along with the customers address. It also had the railway markings. As I recall the dates were in the mid 1890’s. Herschel also the gun which as I remember was a GH grade. Always regret never purchasing all but the family and I were on a two week western trip and I had allocated my discretionary income to our travels. ��
Oh, forgot to mention, the packing contents were of a cardboard type shredded material. ��

As Dave mentioned different times.
I can remember as a kid going to the rail station with my Grandfather and shipping many things.Most memorable were the bird dogs.That was't that long ago.Depending on the age of the dog(mostly puppies)they went in a wood crate(peach crate mostly).Give the porter a few dollars some food and off they went.On the railway I never heard of anything not reaching its destination.

According to the internet the REA was developed during World War I to secure shipping of packages, bankrupt in 1975.

In 1968 I bought a 20 gauge CE Fox from a Mr Balhagen from Iowa for $350.00 shipped by Railway Express. Bobby

As reported by history of the railroads in America they began shipping packages across the country in the nineteenth century as it was much faster than shipping by horses or wagons.

Bill, I don't believe one R.R. could carry you from the east cost to the west cost during WWI. The REA was created to insure that one organization was responsible for shipment of packages throughout there entire journey. During Parker Bros. production it may have required 4 different railroads to deliver a package from Meriden to San Francisco.

FWIW By the early 1900s this line was included in Remington Arms Co. catalogs --

Attachment 77344

They shipped packages across country from 1869 on, by rail. However, it required several carriers to ship parcels across country and ecah had its own system and priorities which can cause mistakes. The REA was established to insure deliveries. They had there own green boxcars with a red plaque on both sides and only REA personnel handled the packages. It must have worked it got us through WWI & II.

Parker shipping Box
 

I posted in "Hammer Guns", a picture of the box that came with a gun I purchased 25 years ago, from an estate. I believe it is an original Parker shipping box. Check it out ,see what you think, Jim.

That box is far too well finished and constructed to be a shipping container.

Now it appears you can't ship anything less than a car load by rail. AMTRACK doesn't allow you to take anything but your luggage as carry on or checked baggage and prohibits sending a long list of items in your luggage. The wife and I are looking at taking AMTRACK to San Diego to visit our son and his family. I wanted to take a special tool to him but that's not allowed even as checked baggage. I suppose that the railroads don't want to lose shipping to AMTRACK.

Dennis, you have rather high expectations for a service created by the bureaucracy, approved of by the politicians, and subsidized by us the taxpayer.

I think the boxes that Dudley mentioned were original Parker boxes. I didn't purchase any of them. I have wood boxes sent out by Parker Brothers into the late era. I have seen Parker boxes made of cardboard but I'm not sure they were used for shipping. My uncle sent my grandfather's Lefever E Grade pigeon gun to me about 1956, via REA, in a wooden box. It was only decades later that I saw an identical box at a Greenwich show, with Lefever labels. Unfortunately, I had trashed the box that my Lefever was shipped in.