I am very grateful to have had a father who had a fifty year passion for Parkers. His father's cousin was his mentor in most of his hunting, fishing and general love for field sports. He didn't actively encourage me; rather, his demeanor passively instilled that same love in me.
I have been lucky to own a few 'benchmark', often unfired examples. I absorbed every nuance and eventually passed them on. The guns that seem to come, and stay, are those that reflect their past owners love for them. Some had higher than average condition, and some had little remaining attributes we look for, like case colors.. These are the guns that whisper to me. I freely admit, there are some that don't go back down to the gunroom, but up to my bedroom. The guns whisper to me because they have so much to say, so many stories to tell. There are a few that excite me as much after owning them for years, as they did when the first arrived.
This 1892, Gough engraved BH, is one of only six 30" BH sixteens made. It was a Parker show gun for a few years, and eventually sold to a prominent Wilton, Connecticut doctor who brought over 100 children into the world. His passion for partridge took it's toll on the gun, and the long legged D4 barrels were eventually replaced with the finest Austrian 20 gauge barrels. Nonetheless, the long disused barrels begged to be reunited with the gun, and Breck Gorman just returned them to us. So many stories to tell.
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