New owner in FL
 

My wife inherited a Parker brothers shotgun from her recently deceased father. I’m trying to figure out what gauge it is. Does the 14 marking under the barrels mean it is a 14 gauge?

No, that stamp doesn’t identify the gauge. Give us the serial number and we’ll look it up in the Parker Identification and Serialization book.





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111878. Looks like it was originally a gift. (See attached pic)

What a great gun!!
A VH grade 12 gauge with 32” barrels and a straight grip. Very desirable... depending on condition.

Great inscription too!

Highly unusual to see an oval initial plate on a lower grade Parker - we normally see that on grade 3 and higher.



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Do you know the people who’s names are on that plate?





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From looking on-line and matching the dates it would make sense that Wallace T Foote Jr was a New York politician and Henry C Pelton would be a fairly well known architect from New York. This is only a guess but they both went to Columbia College at some point. With Pelton being younger than Foote

gun pic. upright.

Gun pic

A letter on the gun may answer this question, but The stock oval is likely not original to the gun how it left the factory. The gun would have originally had a smaller shield shaped inlay which most likely left the factory blank. A lower grade gun like that would have been inventory for a sporting good store. The store would have been able to offer custom engraving on the nameplate for the customer. In this case, the size of the original shield was not good for the amount of text required. So they inlaid a larger oval to gove me room for that inscription.

Your gun was made in 1902. So there is a 6 year difference between that and the inscription on the gun. Do you have any idea who the parties are on it?