A Parker Christmas
 

A couple weeks ago a DH advertised as an unfired restoration by DelGregos was offered for sale. I bought the gun and included with it was a letter from October 14, 1969 signed by Larry DelGrego and addressed to the then-owner of the DH. The gun was as advertised: it was unfired and it appeared to have never been put together. No marks on the breechface at all; however, it has marks on it now. I have been shooting it and it is a wonderful gun. The letter itself is an interesting bit of history by a scion of our little world of the Parker gun. It would appear that a new stock was fit and the old skeleton butt was restored. The original stock is out there somewhere, possibly. If anyone has the capped pistol gripped stock for #163414 I'd like to hear from you.

Heck of a Christmas present to yourself ! I bet it looks better in hand but I dont know how I just went back and looked at the beautiful pictures . Good for you Ed enjoy it !! Merry Christmas

boy what a gun you have and glad to hear that its shooting.... charlie

Nice Ed, very nice. Good for you. Shoot it in good health and then pass it on to Edward. Merry Christmas to you and your "new" Parker.

Ed, excellent choice of a present for yourself. After reading the letter, however, I am a little confused. Does the gun have a pad or the skeleton butt plate? Without seeing the gun, I would know that all the work done was first rate.

Bill- It has a DelGrego pad. The letter is a bit ambiguous. I understood it to mean a new stock was fit and the old skeleton butt was refurbished. I have not had the courage to take the trigger guard off to see how the wood is marked.

The old story is that they burned all the original stocks they took off for firewood. Pretty funny if it's true, talk about literally burning money......

Destry

now thats a good one... charlie

That story is not true. On a visit to their shop many years ago, Babe told me that he had given a number of "take off" stocks to an acquaintance. He later found out that the fellow was selling them for pretty good money and Babe was unhappy about it. He had a number of stocks and forends in his shop and when I told him I needed a stock for a 1 frame, he told me to look through the pile and see what I could find. I found one and he gave it to me. At the time he had quite a few original roughed out forend pieces also, but said he could not use them as the were too dry. I was surprised. Babe is gone now but Lawrence junior junior is doing one hell of a job.