14 gauge?
 

Hello and THANK YOU for allowing me to join this special forum.
I am not a gun collector per se, but I recently ran across a Parker hammer gun in a local pawn shop and fell in love with it.
I went by the other day and purchased it. It bears a patent date of Nov. 13, 1866, and was advertised as a 14 gauge.
This is evidently true, as I read on another forum about this same gun (serial # N 0968) being sold on an online auction in 2006. A discussion followed about finding ammo for 14 gauges.
I guess what I would like to know is whether or not this gauge is particularly rare in the early Parkers, and also if there is any way of determining the year of production from the serial number. The gun has decarbonized steel barrels (30 1/4 ") and is in good to very good condition.
Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give me!
P.S.--As I said, I am a novice collector, so please let me know if I have left anything out, and I will try and correct it!

what you left out is the pictures :rotf:

14 gauge
 

OOPS! Will try and post some soon!

Hi Jack - your 14 ga. Parker was probably made in the first couple of years of Parker gun production. The 14 gauge can probably be considered Rare. I'm not going to go open my TPS to find the data but I will say that not many were made. Pictures would be nice.

Here's one owned by our friend Daryl Middlebrook and restored by Doug Turnbull. It's a real beauty!!
It's quite a bit later than yours and this one has what appear to be Laminated Steel barrels and is quite a nice piece!



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Thanks so much for your post, Dean. I do have some pictures in an album, but can't figure out how to upload them to this thread!--guess I was in such a hurry to get answers I forgot to read the directions properly! Thanks again, Jack.

14 gauge
 

[IMG][IMG][IMG]http://parkerguns.org/forums/picture...pictureid=4626[/IMG][/IMG][/IMG]

14 gauge
 

14 gauge
 

According to the Parker Story Vol II There were 161 11g a and 131 14g a made but I would suspect more than that since the first entry for 14g a is 4702, Yours is o968, mine is 1147 shown on page 233 of Vol I of the Parker story, so I would guess another 25 of each gauge? purely speculation of course, and the 14 ga is not an offering in these early catalogues.Nice find! Gary

14 gauge