In my experience, guys that are always bragging about their shooting prowess on clays (or live birds, even grackles, barn pigeons etc.) to seel an over priced gun- I'd keep my wallet/checkbook close to my vest and walk away and NOT look back. Let's see what you want in a 12 Parker for your shooting program: a ejector gun with a Miller single trigger, 32" barrels and ventilated rib, pg, beavertail, and possibly different chokes in each tube.
Having a shootable VH(E) Parker "restored" is owner's choice- as I subscribe to what the later Ernest Hemingway once said about his guns: "A gun is to shoot", 90% case colors, barrel blue, etc. don't 'float my boat" Good stock fit and balance for my shooting styles, whether afield after Roosters with a flushing dog, or in a blind waiting to pass shoot Canadas- good mechanics: safety, triggers pulls, ejectors in time- I tend to favor 12 gauges with 30-32" barrels, but my GHE and Smith 3E have 28" barrels and I shoot them quite often.
Briley is indeed a master barrel and choke man, I do not care for Poly-Chokes or Cutts on my Model 12's, and screw in chokes on any side-by or over-under- I shoot the chokes put in my guns at the factory by the old masters, long before all this variable business came out. Clays shooters like to 'tinker" to maybe get one more target on the score card, I am NOT a clays man, I will use spreader loads on occasion.
If I found a Meriden 12 VHE with Miller trigger, original factory rib and factory beavertail ( those two options would make it a mid-1920's era gun) with 30 or 32" uncut barrels and unaltered chokes- NRA good to VG but not "restored or refinished"-- and it fit me and I could kill birds with it- maybe $4000 Top dollar in todays' soft gun market. Mike McIntosh described a restored V grade quite well in his 1989 book "Best Guns" page 268, third from last graph. Words of wisdom in 1989, and still today.
