Order Books
What Bill and Allan said is correct. To add to that…
A bit of background…. When Cdr. Gunther copied the Order Books ( one at a time as Remington only allowed one book to be taken out of fear of being lost) he copied only grade 3 and above guns as the TPS authors assumed collectors were primarily interested in the higher grades. Parker did not record their guns by grade but by dollar amount.
For example:
D grade guns were $100 guns
C grade guns were $150 guns
B grade guns were $200 guns
A grade guns were $300 guns
AA grade guns were $400 guns
A1 Special guns were $500 or above guns
Occasionally when sales or the economy were slow Parker would lower the price of the guns to motivate potential buyers. For example a customer might be able to buy an A1S for $400.
When Gunther went through the Order Books he always “assumed” for example a $400 gun was an AA gun and etc.
The Order Books were kept only up to 1920. Thereafter gun records were maintained on IBM cards. These cards recorded the grade, serial number, gauge,
date of manufacture and to whom shipped…. which usually was the wholesaler or retailer.
As with the Stock and Order books several IBM cards were missing and or damaged beyond legibility.
When the late Charlie Price built a data base he statistically accounted for the missing records and guns and added accordingly based upon the books that were available.
Hope this helps and might clear up some confusion.
Bill 🇺🇸
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