Ed,
That is exactly the question I asked myself when I saw it--from the standpoint of a Parker neophyte, the DH damascus guns must represent one of the best values going.
Bill,
Thanks for the insight on both the checkered panels and the seller. I never spoke directly with the owner; in addition to the GB listing, it was sitting on consignment at a tiny local shop. I happened to pull up GB two days before and saw what looked like a clean old Parker in a configuration I liked. Fortunately, it was a short-ish trip for me and worse case I knew it would be a pretty drive. A family friend who deals in antiques and decoys told me once to never ask what someone's lowest price was as that gives the seller time to think what they have in it, etc.--simply set cash down, which is what I did. Shop owner told me guy had 2500 on it--I brought 20, 100 dollar bills and was prepared to walk away. When we got the owner on the phone, he wouldn't go below 2100 and I turned my pockets out. We checked to make sure there were no bids on GB, which there weren't, and the shop ate the $100 on their commission to make the sale.
I certainly don't claim any savvy in this, was just lucky that the gun happened to be listed locally so I could inspect it first-hand. The gun pretty much sold itself and we all know how hard it is to gamble on pictures. Also, the ad mentioned that a chip was glued back in to the left of the top tang, undoubtedly turning lots of folks off. It turned out it was just a line of fossilized oil which had run back from the action. I was able to chip a bit of it off w/ my finger nail confirming the wood was all sound.
As an aside, I remember reading that checkering can be safely cleaned out with a soft toothbrush moistened in Murphy's Oil Soap--I'd like to degunk the side panels a little. Is this okay to do?
Cheers,
Bill
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