Grandma's Gun and Her Sister

[Bill Murphy]

Jeff, has the second gun of your pair been located? I first located the pair of Wagner 8 gauges when we copied the records in 1998. I made a copy of the order and vowed to find those guns some day.

[Jeff K.]

Bill,
I don't know where the G 8 ga. is located. I have not looked for it very hard either.
Jeff

[Kevin McCormack]

OK, guys - just to keep your antennae up - there are a pair of PHE 28 ga. fluid steel barreled guns that came through Wm. Wagner's store. The pair are consecutively numbered and currently live on the Eastern Shore of MD. Babe and his father ran them through the old shop on 5th Ave. in Ilion in the early 1960s. To my knowledge no one has seen them since, but we are still looking.

[Opening Day]

Ok Francis What the Hell are you Talking about !!!!!

[Autumn Daze]

Anyway.....Dave,Thanks for posting that great picture of Kevin and yourself and a couple of great Parker's.

Bill,Was Wagners a high volume Parker dealer in their day?

[Bill Murphy]

Francis, Mr. Wagner's first name was mentioned in my first post. Dave, yes, William Wagner was not only a very high volume Parker dealer, he was the original promoter of 28 gauge guns in the earliest years of their production. If you will refer to your great Parker Pages article about the earliest 28 gauges, you will find that Wagner ordered some of the first. My little quail gun is the seventh 28 gauge ordered, and it came from William Wagner's store. Mr. McCormack and I have a definitive body of research about Wagner's early orders, but we have been denied access by the PGCA BOD to a couple of order book copies which would allow us to complete our research. By the way, the PP article on early 28 gauges was completed without any assistance from the BOD although we could have used it. Oh well.

[Autumn Daze]

Bill, Very interesting info. Thank You. Are there any photos of Wagner's store around anywhere? I would have to think Wagner's location to the Chesapeake Bay region had to at least account for some of volume of gun sales.What era do we need info for to complete your research?

[Bill Murphy]

Dave, I brought up pictures of Wagner's storefront on the computer, don't remember the site. Kevin has visited the store, but I have not. I assume he also has pictures. It exists today with modern style tenants, no gun stores in Southeast D.C. any more. There is a quiver full of explanation for Uncle Billy Wagner's participation in the advent of smallbore popularity in Parker history. Proximity to the Eastern Shore, as Dave suggests, is one of them. However, William Wagner was in the middle of shotgun competition at the turn of the century and before and after. He was a high average trap shooter and surviving shooting papers document his participation in big shoots, including the Grand American. He was the A.W. DuBray of the Washington area, promoting Parkers at shoots on a regular basis. His success in the selling of Parker shotguns resulted in the gifting, from Parker Brothers, of a AAH Pigeon Gun. His discount structure in the order books is as good or better than Shoverling Daly and Gales, Tryon, and other big wholesale houses. He not only sold many 20 and 28 gauge guns, his orders include significant numbers of safetyless pigeon guns, including John Phillip Sousa's AAH safetyless 12 bore. By the way, "Uncle Billy" is not a loosely applied title by his researchers. He was referred to as "Uncle Billy" by the early writers in the gun papers that recorded shooting results. He was a prolific hunter of the Potomac River and Southern Maryland. His ability to sell the 28 gauge Parker when no one else was doing it had much to do with his proximity to the U.S. Capitol, just a short walk from his shop. The House and Senate must have been a real money tree to Wagner and helped to spread the little Parkers to all corners of the country.

[Opening Day]

Bill what Parker Pages article are you refering to on the 28 ga, I must have missed it and would like to read it.

[Dean Romig]

Bill, Thank you very much for your enlightening and informative post.

- save & print -