Just happened upon an article in a an early Double Gun Journal which made me remeber this thread so I wanted to mention it. Written by Charlie Price for the Volume Four Issue 4 edition entitled "The Parker Fish-Tail Top Lever". It discusses a lot of the itms brought up in thisthread, but also touches on some other points. Some of them are: the order book in mid-1884 had a not to "Make hooked top lever so gun will cock when open"; Many early top lever hammer guns before the fishtail had the lever offset to the left; and there is a picture of a 7 frame 8 gauge with a fishtail that will cock while open, but if the gun is cocked when closed, the gun will not open when cocked.
It's a pretty interesting article if interested in the subject and worth a look if you have the Issue available.
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