Parker Bros. guns from the 1930's

[Tennessee Dave]

Yesterday as I was looking up the manufacturing date of my latest Parker, I noticed how few guns were produced in the 1930's. My gun was made in 1930 and several were made that year as 2182 guns were made, but from 1931 to 1934 only 773 guns were produced. The fewest produced was only 82 guns in 1933. Was this due to the Great Depression or a combination of other reasons. Would a Parker that was produced during those hard times be more desirable due to the lower production numbers? If you have a Parker made during those lean years, please post a picture of it.

[B. Dudley]

Yes. The depression.

[Researcher]

The Ithaca NID serial number chronology from the Second Edition of Walter Snyder's book shows 315 regular frame NIDs for those years. It also shows no Lefever Nitro Specials for 1931 & 2 and only 49 for 1933.

[Dean Romig]

Remember, the stock market crash of 1929... It took a decade or more for this country to recover economically... some folks and some businesses never did recover.





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[J. A. EARLY]

Remington steps in to buy the floundering Parker gun business in 1934. Then slowly moves it to Ilion.

[Tennessee Dave]

It would be interesting to know if mostly high grade guns were sold during the hard times vs. lower grade guns.

[J. Scott Hanes]

I couldn't go to sleep tonight so, WTH...I counted a couple pages in the I&S book for the time period. V-grade was highest. 287 total counted. Scanning the other pages, the ratio of V-grade was even higher
V - 96 - 33%
P2 - 68 - 24%
Ti3 - 79 - 28%
A5 - 8 - 3%
S4 - 17 - 6%
A4 - 11 - 4%
S6 - 1 - 0.3%
P7 - 1 - 0.3%
A6 - 2 - 0.7%
PP - 1 - 0.3%

[Bill Murphy]

Total gun sales, 1934 to 1945.
1934: 526
1935: 1047
1936: 1489
1937: 1305
1938: 542
1939: 456
1940: 431
1941: 500
1942: 249
1943: 92
1944: (2)
1945: 14

Total: 6649

Total of all high grades, BHE to A1 Special, 74. Double guns only.

These figures are from a May 10,1946 Remington memo from M.R. Warden to G.E. Pinckney

The projected loss for 1941 as projected in 1940 was $86,200.69. Of that figure, $34,096 was for VHE grade guns. In 1941, it cost $215.59 to build a VHE and its net price was $88.23.