The very earliest VR guns had the 'V' or groove milled into the stem of the rib before the flat bridge treatment over the doll's head well was "standardized" by Parker. Most all of these very early VR guns were ordered or built for stock as field guns before Parker offered the VR as a catalog option (I think in 1921-22), and a lot of the early ones had VRs added and were offered to established shooters to test market acceptance. I once owned BHE #183562, a fully-optioned trap/pigeon gun with VR, ST and straight grip which dated I believe to 1918. Howard Miller of Miller Single Trigger fame told me that he remembered seeing this gun at the GAH when his father took him there in 1919 or 1920, and he is convinced that the gun belonged to William McCarty, at that time the president of the newly-formed ITA.
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