I'm going to throw my "guess" out there and say that at least 3/4th of the 242,000 produced are still out there, somewhere. As a previous writer said, guns were basically well taken care of. They were expensive and a major necessity and generally, do not wear out. Except for losses due to fire or being dropped in a lake, a gun, and particularly a Parker, will be around for almost forever. Additionally, over the years, I have kept track of certain types of Parkers. These were guns that I had a special interest in. I know of well over a100 8 gauges and about 90 back action Parkers. The former were made from the earliest days of production up to about 1915. My list of those constitutes almost 25percent of total production and I am oy one observer. With the backactions, my listing is close to 10 percent of "The Parker Story" estimated production of 1000. Those guns were made in the earliest days of Parker production. If I can find 10 per cent of the backactions and 25 percent of the 8 gauges without much trouble and prior to using a computer, then there must be a whole lot of these guns out there. One final point, for what its worth, my collection has covered the gamut of Parker serials and gauges and I own or have owned Parker No. 286 and No, 242103 and a whole lot in between. Parkers are not hard to find as a lot of them exist, more than we think.
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