Let me give a bit of history and information on the Johnson book. Before Peter researched and wrote his book, there was absolutely no information on Parker guns or the company history, in print. Before 1961, collectors such as myself and many others still in the Parker collecting game had no reference material except "For Sale" ads in the Shotgun News and earlier on, the American Rifleman. Shotguns "For Sale" ads in the American Rifleman had pretty much ended by the early fifties. We bought Parkers by the seats of our pants, not having any information on the originality of Parkers we were buying except visual inspection. I was buying Parkers before I knew Peter Johnson personally, and before he wrote his book. Many other collectors were in the same boat. We knew original condition by experience with other guns and paid for guns that looked original to us. Hundreds of guns were faked up with bogus fluid steel markings on blued Damascus barrels. Most of the faked up guns were poorly done, but others were better. We had no information about barrel markings or lists of factory serial numbers to help us. We worked by experience and empirical information gleened by looking at a lot of guns. We had no idea of rarity of certain grades, gauges, and features except by, again, looking at a lot of guns. Things have changed in the sixty years since the Johnson book was published, especially after the Ilion trip by the PGCA research committee in 1998 and the Kevin McCormack and Commander Gunther trip in 1997.
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