I recently made a post about enjoying reading my first year of Parker Pages, the quarterly journal of the PGCA. In that post, I made reference to my desire to obtain past issues. Within a very short time, Angel Cruz, a PGCA Lifer, made a very generous offer to provide me with his copies back to volume 14 for just the cost of postage. The back issues not only arrived in Collector Condition, I have discovered this morning that Mr. Cruz added to his generosity by including a previous copy of the Ruffed Grouse Society magazine, which is basically "Playboy" for the upland hunter of the woods. What a wonderful gesture from one PGCA member to another.
Non-members of the PGCA are not able to see my previous post on the topic - it is in the member's only section. While the "General Discussion" section is a great source of information on Parker shotguns, the ability to access the member's only section of the forum has proven itself of far more value than the cost of membership - and I do not mean because of the classifieds, although that is certainly a tremendous benefit of membership. Over the past year, I have seen PGCA members demonstrate a clear sense of fraternal bond, and an eager willingness to share the vast amount of knowledge locked away in their cerebral vaults.
These are just a few of the reasons I would encourage every double gun enthusiast to join the PGCA. Although I am a PGCA member, I would not call myself a "Parker Collector". In fact, I didn't even own a Parker shotgun when I joined, and now own just two. That would be sort of like owning two complete sets of Topps baseball cards from the 1980's while claiming to collect baseball cards. The real value for me will come as I grow my assortment of Parkers. In those efforts, I will move forward with a leg up on the majority of the field due to my membership in this association, and the associated knowledge base.
Charles Parker began manufacturing shotguns with a goal to produce the finest American-made shotgun, and I think a very strong argument can be made that he succeeded in that goal. The PGCA membership has honored that heritage by appropriately offering the same level of quality. With apologies to the other vintage shotgun collector's associations, there simply isn't a polite comparison to be made between the PGCA and the rest of the field. So I began by thanking Angel Cruz for his generosity, but I would be remiss not to include the rest of the "Brotherhood" for their contributions to my first year of membership. Here is a special "thank you" to Angel
, and a thank you to everyone else for making the PGCA the Standard of Excellence.
Will Evans
02-09-2014, 12:15 PM
Special Thanks to a PGCA member(s)....
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