Research Letters
 

Ok, inquiring minds want to know. Well at least MY inquiring mind.

I was wondering if we had an idea of how many, total, research letters have been issued for Parker Guns, and about how many has Chuck had to produce in recent years in a yearly basis, AND whether or not that number is increasing/decreasing?

Well let's see.... there were 242,000 plus Parker shotguns made and multiple research letters have been requested on some of those serial numbers. Not saying research letters have been written on all of the Parkers ever made but since the PGCA has had the Parker Factory records Ron Kirby, Mark Conrad and Chuck Bishop have been writing letters.

Chuck, don't go to bed yet - you've got some tabulatin' to do. :bigbye:




.

I just think it would be interesting stats.....i would think less duplicate letters than more, as most folks use their letters as sales support.

An interesting side note somewhat related to this topic, I had just bought Parker Serial# 1310, which shows up as having a research letter available. I almost didn't even check as the serialization book starts at # 1444.

There has to be a lot of neat finds/surprises still out there...

Easy question to answer. There are a total of 6,064 letters in our archived file. The archiving started in April 2004. I'm not sure if Ron Kirby did letters from the beginning until 1/1/05 but after 1/1/05, Mark Conrad did the letters until I took over 5/10/12. Mark did approximately 3082 letters and I've done approximately 2982. Finding a letter previously done doesn't happen very often, probably <5%. I average +- 30 letters per month. This month will be about 40 letters.

Jay, your gun is listed because of a return for work. No original info on such an early gun exists.

Chuck - Many Thanks for the work you do on research letters.





.

Exactly what i was looking for thanks!! So only around 2%! Lots of mysteries still out there!

Lots of undiscovered Parkers out there.
We need new younger recruits to continue our work.





.

Thanks Chuck, I thought it was interesting that such an early gun would have a letter, it makes sense that it was entered into the books later on for a repair. And thanks for all your work on the research letters as well!

In some respects, I see this as an indication of how many "collectible" Parkers are out there. Ordering letters on mundane guns doesn't happen often, I would bet, but it goes to show you that maybe the more interesting or top 3-5% of Parkers are the ones that we are all looking for.