Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig Larter
On Grade 3 and above did Parker ship guns ordered with a Silvers pad include a leather face??
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As evidenced by the 33,800 plus individual document pages we copied in preparation for The Parker Story, Parker did not routinely cover Silvers pads with leather unless specifically requested to do so. Some of the more lengthy entries in the Order Books specify "Silvers pad, cover with Moroccan leather", or, "leather-faced pad." This was an added touch of discriminating luxury for some (you can probably guess who they were!). But these examples are very few and far between.
Moroccan leather is nothing more than goat or sheep skin skived (thinned) to a near-translucent thickness. The big deal here is the twinge of exotic source and the extremely fine tactile sensation (as in fine driving or shooting gloves) afforded by the very thin covering. I have never thought much about the utilitarian aspect (e.g., hiding the - to some - ugly circular pad plugs) or in fact keeping them from falling out, but it makes eminent sense. Parker, like most other worthy makers, would do whatever the customer wanted.
So far as I know from reviewing existing records as we copied them there is no correlation between facing Silvers pads with leather relative to graded guns.