I feel like Peter Johnson started this entire Parker phenomenon, naive as he was about the future of Parker collection and study. I knew Peter Johnson well, from the time I was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. He would have blossomed under the interest of the PGCA, but he was limited by the number of books he sold, not too many hundreds to individuals, only a few thousand to liquidators. His exposure to serious Parker dealers and collectors was very limited. He didn't travel and he didn't write checks, so he was not "in the loop". That concept is unbelievable today, but that's the way it was in the sixties. I met and talked to Peter several times a year in those years, and his knowledge of Parkers was absolutely static after the publishing of the "book". In fact, his "bucket of facts" became lighter as the years went by. I liked Peter a lot, but he was not what we as PGCA types thought he was, or should be. The Parker book was a very short lived project for him, not the love of his life as it is for us. We at PGCA honored him one year at the Baltimore Show, took him to dinner at a nice seafood place out on York Road, and has a great night with him. My long time friend and Baltimore show partner, Peter Zinsser, drove him home to Silver Spring, and we never saw or heard from him again until Jim Hall and Ed Muderlak befriended him and interviewed him for the benefit of PGCA members. Jim and Ed should be commended for their efforts. Another PGCA member, please help me remember, assisted in collecting the manuscripts and research materials for our benefit. Oh, forgive me, we have not been given the benefit of sharing those manuscripts, yet. Maybe sometime in the future, we will be privileged to share in the "Johnson Research Materials". Ten minutes after the secret PGCA research materials are "outed", I will share my Parker research material. Of course, I have made this offer before and it has been ignored. Please buy the Johnson book and enjoy. It is a great book written by a great man. Please let me know what is the deal with PGCA members who conduct great research at great personal expense and then bury it in their bosums and don't share it with others. Some of these great researchers will be honored by PGCA over the years, but will not be worthy or the honors bestowed them. Yup, that's the story.
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