Winter Parker Pages
 

Just wanted to give Mike and Sam a big thank you for another great issue of the Parker Pages. Kudos to all the folks who contributed to this issue, the stories are super. And a big shout out to Mr.Wheaton. The story about Dr. Norris and his relationship with George Bird Evans was a special read. I am a fan of GBE and have several of his book, though I haven't read them in a while. I knew he was friends with Dr. Norris, and that he received his prized "little Purdey" from the good doctor after his death, but I didn't know that Dr. Norris was also an author of upland books. Now i will have to try and track down his book for some fine reading when the weather turns nasty this winter.

Where has The Parker Pages been? I've had my The Remington Collector's Journal for over a week.

I can't abide GBE!! He so badly screwed up the Harold Money story in the book he edited of Nash Buckingham stories that I can't forgive the lack of due diligence.

I e had the Remington thing for almost two weeks I think .

Mail date is "tentatively" Nov 17th. Then Thanksgiving and USPS and whatever other forces. Got mine two days ago. Who really cares about other collectors publications, quality is worth waiting for. And I'm not even joking here. : )

I agree, Don, there were some really interesting reads in the PP. I was interested in the .410 Dupont gun which Shelly Gitman had upgraded to A1S.
SG guns have become my latest favorite topic, and this is yet another of the great Runge - Delgrego creations.

Still waiting with baited breath for mine Gary

Shelly indeed ran with the Parker "Big Dogs." One of his closest friends was Dr. Robert C. Snavely of Hagerstown MD, one of many "country doctors" who transitioned through the post-WW I years through the roaring '20s and into the Great Depression as a small town family physician. When times really got rough, patients unable to settle their bills often offered the good Dr. family guns in trade for services rendered. Over the years Snavely accumulated a fair number of Parker guns, some very high grade and unusual.

During the winter months when little or no competition shooting was held, once a month on Sunday Shelly would hop into his Corvette with 3 or 4 notable guns from his collection or recently acquired and make the 2-hr. drive down to Hagerstown to spend the day with Dr. Snavely and examine and talk about Parker Guns.

Attached is a photograph of the good Dr. along with another of a letter dated July 7, 1937 signed by Walter King, documenting the Parker Gun ordered by Annie Oakley. Dr. Snavely is shown holding that gun in the photograph. He died in 1985.

Blurry and hard to read, the letter states:

"Dear Sir:

We are advised by our Mr. Bracher that you are the owner of a Parker double gun, 102516, and that you would like what information and records we have relative to this gun.

Our records show that it is a 12/30 BH and was made for Annie Oakley and sold to her care of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in April, 1901. That is all the information we have relative to the gun and its sale. How long Miss Oakley or Mrs. Butler, as her married name was, shot this gun we do not know.

Very truly,
W.A. King
Parker Gun Works
Remington Arms Co."

My copy was in the PO box today but I'm not sure when it arrived as I'd not checked the mail all of last week .

I enoyed the Charles Norris article as well as the oe on the annual meeting and the one on this years Rock Mountain shoot . I'm sure Ill find others that intrest me its ust those three were I'd read here at the shop today .

For those who have not seen it, I think it has one of the best covers I've ever seen. As I get to edit the proof before it's in production I always get a "sneak peak" but it's always so much better in hand and I'm praying we NEVER go to a digital copy only. Bluck. You'll all like this one, I promise. Again, tremendous work by our editors.

Kevin, thanks for the Doctor Snavely tidbits. One of our members, a neighbor of mine now gone, owned some of Doctor Snavely's guns. His father was a close friend of Snavely's. The neighbor and I spent time talking about the old Parker days, pre PGCA, when we were teenagers and twenty somethings. He and I seemed to be the last Parker guys that remember Willie Eckmeier, a collector famous for destroying many great Parkers in the name of upgrading. Willie is the fellow who offered me a job when I got home from the Army in 1969. Willie knew very little about truth in advertising, so I had to decline his offer, but I may have lost a chance to purchase or inherit his International Harvester business.

Thanks for the kudos guys! Our individual copies arrived today and the box with our editor copies arrived Friday. Contributor copies were mailed today.

Many thanks to our members that contributed their "First Parker" stories. It was fun putting that article together.

Our copies just arrived. In thumbing through it, I notice the article on the DuPonts who owned a premier duck plantation near Georgetown at the time. Very interesting family, another branch of the family owns a place near Dad’s and I have hunted ducks on it.

This video is long, but well worth the watch. https://youtu.be/YJ0YHEXTMkg?si=DFyUDdi-rmCxQZZm

And Ted Turner bought the Kinloch Plantation and, just like all other Turner properties in the West, has turned it entirely into a nature preserve (read NO HUNTING).





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I finally got my PP late yesterday and have already read it through. What fine and diverse offerings! I have my favorites, but all are of quality. Puppy pictures always have appeal, and glimpses into the past, whether factual or nostalgic, get and keep my attention. Mike and Sammy have done well in continuing the quality of our publication and adding their own person touch, and are keeping a high standard set by previous editors from day one of the publication. My congratulations to the editors and the authors, and my thanks to them for making our publication the best of its kind.

I grew up on and around Montpelier in Orange VA that wasJames Madison’s home and later purchased by William DuPont and after his death it was taken over by his daughter Marion DuPont Scott , her second husband was Randolph Scott . Anyway in the biography of Marion DuPont Scott there was a section in the book about properties her father had and that she had . Seems they had a plantation somewhere in Georgia the plantation was located on the Altamaha River and they called it Altama supposedly it was 9,000 acres . She also owned the track and steeplechase course in Camden SC along with a training facility and a manor house in the town of Camden .

There is hunting at Kinloch. Ted Turner no longer owns it anyway

Got my copy yesterday. Haven't gotten past the cover yet, but that cover photo warms the cockles of me heart. Born and bred a dove shooter, a limit of mourners and a nice S X S always stirs me.

Well done!

Made it to TN yesterday

On page 41 there’s a picture of the Fox Challange team . Is that Santa Claus behind Daryl in the golf cart :rotf::rotf::rotf:

Craig, you saw the Rich Anderson photo-bomb!! 😂🤣👍🏻

Note Miss Taylor I believe just East of Santa getting a big chuckle out of the situation.:rotf:

Sssshhhhhhhhh :rotf::rotf::rotf:

You are correct sir! See what fun y’all are missing out on!! It’s the place to be. :cool:

Here is a link to the 8 millimeter film referred to in Art Wheaton's PARKER PAGES article about George and Kay Evans' visits and their shoots with Dr. Charles Norris.

It is not a professional production, as said at the end of Art's article. It appears that the principals were doing all the filming themselves, home movie-style. But that such a time-capsule of 1950s bird hunting exists at all, showing the dogs, the guns, and these personalities of classic American sporting literature in action, without the guile or bombast of so many contemporary commercially-sponsored hunting videos, accounts for a special rarity and value for enthusiasts.

https://youtu.be/rpYxxV19oRI

That’s wonderful Russell - Thanks very much for the link.
It is so important to have and view, and be able to go back as often as we would like to these times of our sporting heritage!





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I just watched it, that is really something to see from the 1950's.

The Doctor Norris article reminds me that I missed the Norris "Woodcock Gun", a great lightweight Purdey that was in a retail store and now is in the wind. A PGCA member once owned it and let it go. I'm not sure he knew what he had. I didn't buy it for about half of what it was worth, even without the Norris provenance. I'll be ready if I ever get my "second chance". Dean Romig gave me a bitch slap for letting it go. At the time I didn't even own a Purdey so there was no excuse.

True that Bill !!





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Dean, I'm still recovering from that slap. I deserved it.

.....I can't disagree with you on that point Bill.





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I really enjoyed Reggie Bishop’s story “I Pulled the Trigger”. Creative and reminiscent.

Rick

Reggie’s piece connected with me also, Rick.