What mistakes have you made buying Parkers?
 

I searched for titles related to "mistakes" and "mistakes made" and didn't find much. This is prompted by a recent thread which I found instructive as many of them are. I have 4 Parkers including a repro. I guess I could say my biggest mistake so far is buying a 26" VHE 12g choked M/F. It doesn't handle all that great and I've been bitten by the 16 bug anyways. The 12 is in decent
and mostly original condition from what I can tell, and at my price point I don't think I'll have much downside if any at all. I usually specialize in losing money on guns. I hope to avoid a big mistake in the future as I feel another purchase coming on. So far I feel blessed that folks here helped me avoid the big loser.

Anyone care to share a mistake they've made for purely educational purposes? Of course : )

i bought the first one

Not made a mistake on a Parker.....

Did make a minor mistake on an Ithaca 16ga, but it all worked out really well, when someone traded me a very nice Browning Citori 12ga Super Lightning for it. I came out well ahead at that point. The Ithaca was my first sxs pickup, and although the gun was mechanically fine, I paid too much for it. Luckily, someone traded me something that was worth more than I had paid for it originally.

I can't remember them all.

Now that is funny as hell Rick

A long time ago, probably 35+ years now I was in a phase where I was convinced the answer to the ideal grouse gun was light weight. I purchased a GH 20 with 26" barrels primarily because it weighed only 6 pounds. It was a miserable gun to shoot for many reasons and was about as far from an ideal grouse gun as I could get. It went down the road after 1 season. Still believing that light was the answer I put out a pile of money for a Purdey 20 thinking that surely anything that costs that much must be good. That Purdey turned out to be one of the worst I ever had. Fortunately, both were sold for more that I paid for them so my lessons were not expensive, just time consuming. Eventually I got somewhat smarter.

I've made 2 1/2 mistakes on Parkers -

The first was on the first Damascus gun I had ever bought, a GHE sixteen gauge on the 0-frame. It had 26" barrels that I learned after I took delivery that they had been cut from 28" but that didn't bother me too much because I bought it for close work. The worst thing about it was that some kid had got ahold of it and tried to make a POW grip with no cap out of a capped pistol grip. What a butcher job! it had a very nice DHBP and real pretty grain in the stock but it was "butt ugly" and Tony cut me a deal on it,,, yeah right...
But it was the first SXS I ever killed a grouse with and it kept on killing grouse and woodcock until I retired it ten years ago or more. By the way, I sent it to Oscar Gaddy and he measured the chambers and barrels and pronounced it safe to shoot with low pressure shells.

The second mistake was a beautifully refinished GH 12 gauge with 30" Damascus barrels on the 1-frame. It was a gorgeous gun but I didn't realize it but I believe the barrels had been honed. I shot it to try to qualify for Team Parker back in '06 or '07 and almost made the team with a score of 18 smashing some clays just before they hit the ground out about 50 yards. Problem with that gun was it came off face too soon and I figured somebody had tightened it up somehow but the fix wore out prematurely. I learned the barrels were thin by the way the right tube flattened along its length when I fell with it on my brick walkway when I got home from my trap/Skeet club. My grandson had left a toy on the walkway and in the dim light I didn't see it and went down but I sure didn't think it was hard enough to do that to the barrel.

My 1/2 mistake was on a 16 gauge, lightened 0-frame Grade 1 hammer gun I bought at Hausmann's about eleven or twelve years ago. Turns out it was the only one made in this configuration. It had Laminated Steel barrels with a length of 26" and it was a pretty little thing. Problem was that I didn't notice the ring bulges (of only .007") at both cones. The seller wouldn't take it back but gave me $2,000 off the price, I wrote about this gun in Parker Pages "Shot To Destruction." I had Brad repair it and he blessed it with "It's fine to shoot to your heart's content." and I still have it and have killed a lot of birds with it.





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My mistake didn't involve a Parker but a Westley Richards SBT. I learned a big lesson. When I bought my first Parker from Ken Waite iii at Pintail Point, I had Dewey Vicknair and Craig Libhart check it out before purchasing. I try not to make emotional and snap decisions thinking you know more than you do. Knowledge is power.

I bought a 20 ga DHE way back with 26 inch barrels that i learned had been cut 4 inches! Bobby

My number 1 Parker misfire was a big one, but it wasn't the guns fault. I bought a sweet little VHE-20 ST vent rib gun off Gunbroker from a seller in Maine. "Dean Knows the gun" After I had the gun in my possession for a least six months a cop showed up at my door asking about the gun. He told me it had been reported stolen & had the paperwork from the Maine court system showing he was to take possession of the gun and send it back to Maine. The last I saw of the gun was the cop walking down my driveway with it & putting it in the trunk of his cruiser.

The pawnshop seller in Maine said he checked if the gun was stolen before he listed it on GB and basically said it look's like you have a fight on your hands, it not my problem now and refused to refund any money on it. I did get named as a restitution person from the criminal case involving the thief for what ever that was good for. Bottom line is I lost close to $5000.00 on that deal!! I do have a Eastern insurance policy on my collection, but they deigned my claim due to the clause about not being covered for government confiscation.

This one still stings to this day!!

Paul.. OUCH!

Paying J-LOEW in Bitcoin.........:whistle:

I don't worry too much about the past mistakes I've made. I learned valuable lessons from each of those. It's the future mistakes that I dread.

Well I sold a couple I should have kept and bought a couple of should of left alone. Why do I do that?!

Still frett about the VH 20 with 30" barrels Jerry Andrews wanted to sell me back in the late 1980's--I thought 26" were what I needed for grouse, so I passed on it. Now I prefer 30".
Harold , you dumb ass!

I didn't press a friend on a graded 20 with 32 and 28 inch barrels. He lived out of state and wouldn't ship it and there was a minor trigger issue he wanted fixed first. I told him I could get it fixed and it didn't concern me but it was his gun so I left the issue alone. I tried to meet up with him on the way to the Southern one year but it didn't work out. He later died and I couldn't connect with the family.
I have to much money in a high condition CHE 16 with 30 inch barrels.

I have three sawed off Parkers and love all three. The price was right. BH 10, 18", DHE 12, 26", DHE 16, 24", all great condition, all working well.

My biggest challenge is in my head figuring out what something is worth. Not good enough yet to know what grades fetch what and why, without digging out books and charts and doing some serious research. Usually by then the gun is gone. Most of the ones I keep going back to and consider remain there which tells me I must have no flipping idea what I'm doing because nobody else is buying them either.

One mistake I've made is NOT BUYING great Parkers I thought were priced too high...just to see them skyrocket in price a few years later!

I have made my share of mistakes until I bought a wall thickness gauge, bore mic, and order a Parker letter or Fox factory card before taking my wallet out. Judging condition only comes from years of looking at guns and purchasing a couple of bench mark guns. I question collectors that say they have never lost money on a gun. The only way to accomplish that in my opinion is don't buy your first one LOL!

Man, how I would love to be shown how to use these tools properly. I have a drop in choke gauge, chamber gauge and the gun measuring tool from Robert Louis I picked up used.

I have never made a mistake acquiring a Parker.:eek: (So, Andy, I've got a couple to sell if you are interested.):rotf:


(OK, in case the humor was missed in that statement, I should mention that my middle name is "Mistake.")


(OK, to further my case, I have every double gun I ever purchased.:crying::banghead: So what does that make me? Again, middle name -- Mistake.)

But, I'm content with what's in my gun safes.

I appreciate the "offer" Garry : ) I'm now sitting on a real nice condition 12g LC Smith with 28" barrels that I thought I "stole." I can't sell it! I'll donate it to the RGS or fundraiser for the NRA and at least feel good about it. Probably the best use I can make of it. I keep wondering what to get next and I don't really need anything more to use but somehow I think I'm going to lose that battle. Overall I'm blessed to have what I have.

Not a Parker mistake, but early on I would buy any double that was priced right. Gauge and configuration didn't matter neither did maker. Shot them all and sold them all. Got my money back from all but one. Even that one I only lost out on about $150. So, specialize in what you want to buy. Me, Parker and Lefever. I pass on Eurotrash!! :)

The wisdom of Daryl Corona comes to mind here. You don't pay to much but you might pay it to soon. Meaning sooner or later you will realize the value of your past purchase.

The biggest Parker mistake I ever made was NOT buying one. At a pigeon shoot somewhere in a super secret not to be named place. A gun dealer offered me a 32" DHE 28 gauge (out of an estate sale) for $3500.00
I figured I didn't really need a 28 gauge, so passed.
My buddy and I still lament that one to this day.

I will say again, in gun collecting (and life in general), regret may be the strongest felt emotion. It's certainly one of the longest felt emotions. Todd, that one must truly haunt you.

I am speechless.

"Not buy" or sell to make a few bucks is the most common mistake. Examples in my case are selling a #2 frame 32" factory 3" because I felt that no VH 20 is ever going to be worth $1000. Another potential mistake would have been not buying a wonderful little VH 28 because it was a nice restock with a blued receiver. $2600 sounded like a lot money at the time, but the gun has perfect barrels with all correct bore and choke dimensions. It is also a lightly used seventh 28 gauge made by Parker Brothers. There are thousands of examples of collectors not buying a gun because it is overpriced TODAY. The market price of a class of guns is not the most important factor to consider. Even more important is that the particular variation, not just a class of guns, will disappear from the market because they are all bought up. Then they disappear into collections for decades. In my opinion, long barrel smallbores, even 16s, and Super Foxes are a class of guns that will disappear in the next few years, to be injected into collections for years. Overpaying for such guns today is just something you have to do if you want to own one. If you want to own an AHE trap, and one comes on the market, you have to buy it, even if overpriced. WHY? Because the next time you see it or one like it, it will be in a luxury auction and it will sell for $30000, way more than the first time you saw one. OK, that's my story and my advice.

Bill, I think there is a great deal of wisdom in what you wrote. Let me ask you (and others), though, since it seems that many of us are, how shall I say, more experienced in life (OK, older), don't you foresee that those guns that are being bought into collections to be held, might not be held for so long and might then become available to younger collectors? Then, there is the seemingly diminishing pool of potential collectors that is often cited in discussions among today's collectors.

Just curious how you or some others might respond.

Mistakes?? Plenty, generally by paying more than I could ever get out of them even now. Recently I sold one for $200 - a #1 frame 30" twist PH12 w/pristine bores - that I had shortly before paid over 3x that for..... didn't look at it closely enough when I bought it and wanted the new owner to have room to fix it without suffering. Then there was the choke opening fiasco of a gorgeous SG 26" Remington era VH12 with a gorgeous blonde stock that resulted in the barrels being so thin you can take dents out of the muzzles with stick.... that one really hurt. Only way to really fix it is to chop it to 24". There's not enough metal for choke tubes of any kiind. Ouch!! I killed 54 birds in one day at a preserve with that gun on one trip. My all time daily record by far.

Unfortunately the younger group of shooters are more orientated to modern guns. If you shoot sporting clays at the local club you will see semi autos and pumps not sxs. Also the younger shooter for the most part doesn't have the disposable income for a say VH/VHE 20 thats $3000 or more, they are raising their families and working just as we did at that stage of our lives.

This is certainly the truth. In retirement I have more disposable goof around income then I had less then 20 years ago and I am 73 now. Good planning on my part. I managed to "sneak in" a few good ones even then but it was hair razing. Course they were not collectable Parkers et al.

I must say this exact topic of loosing young shooters after they get out of college and off college teams is a real thing. They are out on their own in many cases and as such need to budget $$$ for repayment of school loans, everyday living expenses and for some the onset of a family. Sure there are some who are silver spooned or even manage tp retain some sort of sponsorship but those are few and far between. So from the numbers we looked at back about 8-10 years ago we will not see those shooters again until they are in their 30's having established themselves with enough disposable income and time from family to allow such endeavors.

Just a comment from an old coach.

To answer Garry, yes I do I believe I see collections being put back out into the market place for young guys like me (56 is damn young...) and I'm starting this endeavor later in life. With kids in college and some years to retirement, I look for sound usable guns that I can hopefully sell later without a problem. I just can't afford a $10-15K 16g gun to slog around the woods in, and can't justify hanging on for an investment, unless I'm pretty darn sure it's going to go up (this part of the game I have never figured out...). About young kids not having disposable incomes, well, these kids also shoot $2600 Benelli Super Sports and have Polaris Rangers and snowmobiles that cost a LOT of money. They just don't have the knowledge yet. You can only hope that once they clear puberty and grow up and get a few gray hairs they'll come around. I shot my very used 16g VH at skeet last week. There were nothing but sporting guns, and nice ones at that, all around me. But I could hear over and over "He's shooting a 100 year old Parker...that's a Parker.." So that was pretty cool (until they saw my shooting). Do you know that every single one of those guys was FLOORED when I told them it cost less than the vast majority of the guns on the rack. The best thing you can do is educate them I guess. I let anyone shoot it who wanted to, and some of these guys shooting for years never handled one. There is a wow factor. I think if I weren't married my Parkers could be an effective chick magnet, almost as good as a puppy.

My biggest mistake of the many I have made was selling a 28ga. AHE that I had picked up in the early 90s for $10K. I sold it for $15K and have been kicking myself ever since.

Interesting topic. No regrets, but I think my mistake was buying every Parker I could afford on my blue collar income. I may have an assortment of maybe 11 or 12 Parkers. I could probably be happy with just the two 20s. Both straight stocked VHs, maybe 1904 - 06. One is a beautiful early Delgrego restoration. The other well used, but tight. I'm probably sitting about the same with my many Foxes. I've also many early Ithacas, Smiths, Lefevers, and a couple other makes. I've too many to enjoy. Throw in my two Fox 20s with the Parker 20s, and I'd be content. Someday I'll get down to maybe 10 total. It's easy to learn from our mistakes, even harder to let go of some of them......
Chris, AZ

Why don't someone put that on a patch to sell......:)

PML

I think that Destry dude could do it. "Who Needs a Puppy When You Got a Parker?"

Yes, that one haunts me. Even though it was close to 25 years ago, I should have bought that one. Funny thing is, if it were a 20 gauge, I would have been on it like a duck on a june bug. A 32" 20 gauge would have been a find.
My old friend, and PGCA member Chuck, was there and handled the gun as well, so I have someone to share the shame with.
BTW, I picked up a sweet little 0 Frame 16 hammer gun at the same shoot. 200 bucks.

The only Parker mistake I ever made was trying to buy a GH 16 ga. from Griffin & Howe last year. Barrels measured well below safe minimums. I was the second member here to buy and then send that exact gun back (found out when I posted about the gun here).

I ended up getting soaked for the shipping and insurance both ways, even though I brought it to their attention that they knew full and well it had been returned by the other gentleman and they insisted on passing it off on me anyway.

I know G&H has a gunsmithing department with the tools to measure that barrel set. Not sure what happened to the gun after I returned it. Hopefully they fit another set of barrels to it to render it safe and useable.

This deal soured me on G & H. I skip right past their listings on GI every time. I won't even consider purchasing from them after this ordeal. I however, am not soured on Parkers. I love my EH 10 a good deal and enjoyed taking my last 20 Canada geese with old damascus lady this past season.