What a great couple of guns. And a nice example of a back action gun in that number 101. And a nice low number! And either way you read it it is 101. There are some early guns. IE: T latch that is in the Meriden Historical Society is either 06 or 90 depending on how it is held.
For anyone not too familiar with Very Early Parker double shotguns. The guns in the current serial number range that we know them as today are made under the name "Parker Bros." These guns start with Serial number 1 and go up from there. Starting in 1869 when the company adopted the name "Parker Bros." However, Charles Parker's Gun manufacturing operation had been making Double Barreled sporting guns since 1866. The 1866 - 1868 guns can be divided into two different groups. Both with their own separate sequences of Serial numbers. Completely unique and different from the 1869 and up "Parker Bros." serial numbers.
The first group (starting at serial number 1) is the Miller designed T-Latch lifter guns. These were marked "Meriden Manufacturing Company for Chas. Parker". The earliest known serial number of the T-Latch guns (according to TPS) is number 27. Possibly number 09 (which was in the collection of Wilber F Parker Jr. and now at the Meriden Historical Society), however it could be serial number 90 since it is not sure fron what direction the number is to be red when holding it. As a note, I own T-Latch number 49.
The second group (again starting at serial number 1) was guns manufactured under the name "Charles Parker Maker". These guns were more like the "Parker Bros" guns in mechanical design. Both front action and back action designs were used, but most known were back actions. TPS states that no higher serial number number has been found than 27 of these guns. But they suspenct taht maybe no more than 40 were made.
Once the "Parker Bros." marked guns were manufactured (a third time starting with Serial number 1), the back action guns were first used and then phased out over the first couple thousand numbers or so. By 1874 the back action was not part of the Catalog offering. As another note... I own Back action number 1500 but also a front action with the earlier serial number of 1219.
An intersting thing about my back action number of 1500, or more specifically the number 1500 itself, is that in 1874 when the stock books were started, the first number preprinted in stock book 1 is 1500. But it is crossed out and an earlier number (1200 something) is hand written in its place. Many of the first numbers in the book were blank since by 1874, they were already up in the 4000's for manufactured guns.
The information of Parker's first guns is detailed in The Parker Story.
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B. Dudley
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