FWIW. The first Parker I bought was a 1913 12ga Trojan with 28" barrels. It was 1984 and not much info was available on these guns back then. The very first time I used and fired the gun I killed a Black duck with the right barrel and drake mallard with the left. It was an eventful morning as I was on my way to spend a year at a USAF radar site in Iceland later that day. When I got back the gun was a favorite fowler until lead was banned, when Bismuth came out it went back in service. Like many here I often wished I knew it's history. I had a strange sense that it had been used for duck hunting before but nothing other than mild ESP. In 2000 I discovered the PGCA and the ability to get a research letter. I immediately sent off for one. When it came back I was pleased to learn the gun was part of 25 gun order, delivered to a hardware store in Norfolk VA (near Chesapeak Bay) in 10/13. That reinforced my sense this gun had taken ducks on the salt water long before it came into my hands. Does the letter make the gun more valuable, probably not in $, but it did make it more valuable to me. The gun had some cosmetic wear when I got it, but 25 years of steady use and a lot of it on salt water took a toll. On my 50th b-day I took a drive out to Ilion NY and had Larry DelGrego & Son restore everything but the case colors as there was a lot of original cc left. If my house was on fire this would be one of things I would dive out the door with (along with a skeet gun and 10ga
), not because of it's resale value but for what it means to me.
