Greg, and all, I concur with Dave Trevallion's assessment of the Parker Reproductions. I have spent many hours with Dave at his home and in his shop and we've talked a lot about these Parker Reproductions.
I've owned a few Repros and liked them very much, in fact my grandchildren will soon inherit Kathy's 28 gauge Repro Skeet gun.
Value is one thing and the value of an original Parker and that of a Repro is very subjective. The 'market' (real gun buyers) is what sets value but as David says, "Parker Reproduction guns were in every respect equal, if not superior, to the originals." he wasn't making reference to the value placed on them by the market. They were manufactured of better steel alloys, machined, in most respects, to finer tolerances and also in most cases (excluding the overly heavy twenty-gauges) handled just as sweetly as the originals. The fact that the checkering did not have mullered borders was not an oversight, but simply because of the fact that the original Parkers Mr. Skuese sent to be copied were all Ilion made Remington Parkers which did not have mullered borders. The workers at Kodensha were instructed to copy exactly the guns they were sent - and they did, and they did a truly superior job of it.
I have never owned an original Parker .410 nor a Repro .410 and I don't have the desire to and IMO they kind of fell on their faces with regard to the barrel separation (distance between bore axis at the muzzle) - somehow I think they could have done better.
The original Parkers have that mystique that the Repros won't have for several more generations of shooters - their sons and grandsons... and their grandsons after them.
Just my HO but I think Dave Trevallion nailed it.
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"I'm a Setter man.
Not because I think they're better than the other breeds,
but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture."
George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic.
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