68088 Got my letter
 

First, thank you Chuck for getting my letter out so quickly. My response to the information was interesting, but also somewhat disappointing. The gun was ordered by the E.K. Tryon Company, Philadelphia, in 1892. I would assume that the gun was for someone well placed in the company, or for Mr. Tryon himself. They were purveyors of low to medium priced firearms, hardware and firearms manufacturing tools and equipment. They had a display at the Centennial Exposition, in 1876. The disappointing part, is that it left the factory with 30" barrels, so someone shortened them by one inch. My guess would be that Tyron had the ability to perform the modification, but maybe it was sent back to Parker. No records exist to support this. The chokes still measure modified and full. I still love it and am very happy with its performance.

Unless the letter states that the gun was ordered specifically for an individual, it is likely one of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of guns ordered by E.K. Tryon for inventory over the years Tryon routinely ordered large lots of guns, usually Trojan through Grade 2 (GH) for stock on hand, and were one of the largest distributors of Parkers. A single order from Tryon encountered in copying the Order Books in preparation for TPS ran over 14 pages! Without documentation, it is impossible to tell when or by whom the barrels were shortened, a common modification requested for guns with damaged muzzles.

And a homespun method of opening tight chokes.

Re: 68088 Letter
 

Thank you for the info. I did not know that Tryon was a Parker distributor. Does that mean that a customer could request a gun from them with a specified barrel length? Did they (Tryon) have the ability to perform the modification? In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. I'm just curious. The next time I shoot trap with it, I'm going to experiment, by letting the birds go further away, testing the effectiveness of both chokes. So far, at normal distances, it appears that the mod/full, is consistent.

For the most part it appears that guns G grade or below were largely, not always but largely, ordered as stock items. According to TPS you didn't get into truly custom order guns until you hit D grades. I believe this coincides with the statement that typically letters don't show a specific name of a person who ordered the gun unless it is D or higher.

One of our more learned members can correct me if I have any of that wrong.

Tryon was one of the largest distributors. A customer could select any standard barrel length (e.g., 26, 28, 30, or 32 inches) from them either their voluminous catalog(s) or as a walk-in customer, of which there were thousands over the years. Any odd-out lengths (like 24, 27, 29, 31, etc.) were not normally stocked by firms like Tryon but they could order them for the custom by request directly from Parker Bros.

Firms like Tryon received large and substantial discounts (in nos. of guns ordered as well as percentage of dealer prices). Volume was the name of the game with these operations and they spent little time and housed few resources (like in-house gunsmiths) to perform routine operations like cutting barrels and opening chokes.