Trap Guns
Dave; I don't think a trap gun has to be provenanced to a shooter to be a trap gun, but the light 26 inch gun shown in Du Bray's table of competitor's measurements was certainly a trap gun.
Parker had a number of flyers and leaflets in the 1920's promoting trap guns and offering retrofits of trap (btfe) fore ends, ejectors and vent ribs. Cdr Gunther, Bill, and Charlie collected s/n of late guns with vent ribs and tabulated them as Trap Guns in The Parker Story.
The brochures, including one from Jeff Kuss that appeared in Winter Parker Pages encouraged trap shooters to enhance scores with BTFE, rib etc, but did not offer a specific model with some or all of these features as a "trap gun".
I remember examining the gun that John Dunkle has brought to our New Years Day outing, and pouring over the order book page trying to decifer the entry "rib like trap". Then the bells rang; a rib like a trap gun; a ventilated rib like a single barrel trap.
I think it boils down to the old story; some people collect guns, some people collect marks on guns, and some people collect stories about guns. A nice gun, with good marks, and a good story to go along, should be very desirable to all three collectors.
Best, Austin
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