Thank You Tom Wooden, John Davis and Others!
 

My copy of Parker Pages Spring 2026 edition arrived this afternoon. Many enjoyable articles were included as usual!
The announcement to the membership that the PGCA has acquired the original Parker Gun Manufacturing Records is good news!
Thanks goes to both men mentioned above and to the PGCA Board of Directors as well as Chuck Bishop and John Dunkle.

WOW! Thanks, John Davis and Tom Wooden and whoever else was responsible. The whole Ilion group knew it would happen some day, but we didn't know when or how.

Those records are indeed a boon for PGCA!

That’s BIG news! Kudos to all involved!

What is the range of serial numbers

Craig, if we bought both the order books and the stock books, the serial number range is everything that is available in the books. We already have all the information that is included in the order books. In 1998, we didn't copy any of the stock books as I recall, so all of that information will be new. We didn't have copying machines that would take the large size of the stock books. However, it will be a monumental job to digitize the stock books, because they are so fragile. I doubt that PGCA will tackle that job in the near future. I am waiting for John Davis
to correct my statements and add to them. Correction: Chuck reminds me that the stock book information will not be "new", but will be in a better form to be recopied so it can be used by the PGCA researchers. Thanks, Chuck.

Bill, the process is under way to digitize the full page images of the Stock Books. All the columns without data cut off. Much better technology is being used than what you guys had available at the time you went to Ilion.

This is the culmination of decades or hopes and wishes and very diplomatic discussions. These efforts have been ongoing but have finally come to a very happy conclusion.
This end result will be beneficial to the PGCA for many years to come.
Congratulations to those who brought this effort to a conclusion!





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So, once the digitizing is done, will I be able to reorder all my letters, with updated info from the stock books included? I'll do it if there's any meaningful extra data. What do "you in the know" think, will it be worth it?

Has anyone contacted the DelGrego family to see if the Parker records they had in their possession are available for donation or sale to the PGCA? With the passing of Babe and Lawrence and the demise of their business I wouldn't think they would be of much value to surviving family.

The DelGrego family has continuously stated unequivocally that those volumes in their posession will never be released.





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Did the surviving members say that and say it after the passing of the two principles of the business?

This is great news and there is no better home for the records than the pgca.

Murphy, you weren't involved with copying the stock books at Remington? You must have been involved then with copying the order books. I'm pretty sure you knew that the authors of TPS were given permission by Remington and had the stock books copied in Ilion in the 1990's. Those stock book entries are what the Serialization Book is primarily composed of. Before publication of the Serialization Book, the PGCA was allowed to copy the Order Books and every grade 3 or above that was missing due to a missing stock book, was included in the Serialization Book.

Yes, as I recall, Commander Roy Gunther copied the stock books the year before our PGCA group went up to copy the order books. Thanks for reminding me, Chuck. Eighty is not the new fifty, regardless of what anyone tells you.

I don’t know.





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