"NO, NO, NO! Parker scribes were religious about their record keeping, and did not discriminate according to grades or numbers produced."
I don't know if this is true or not but it doesn't hold water just yet. For years we have heard, on this BB, that when the books were transcribed by the PGCA they only bothered copying the higher grade guns. Now you say that is not true - so which is it?
I have a hard time believing the lower grade gun records' not being available can be attributed solely to missing books. Here's why - in many cases you can go down the list of gun in the Serialization book and see blocks of 15 or 20 high grade guns, non-sequentially numbered. It stands to reason the missing serial numbers belong to lower grade guns that simply were passed over. Or does it make more sense that Parker decided to skip over various serial numbers and produced 12 D+ grade guns in a row?
In any case, I can always tell who has and has not worked in a manufacturing facility before based on their level of disbelief over lost records. Is it really hard to imagine that hand written, paper records from a firm that went out of business in the 1930's could be in less than pristine condition? The real miracle is that so many survive. Or better yet, that they bothered making any records at all in the first place.
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