HOW MANY LEFT?

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by greg conomos

As a side note, the other day I saw a public notice...I think it was in the Wall Street Journal...of ATF confiscated guns. I didn't see any Parkers but I also didn't spend much time looking. What was noteworthy was the staggering number. It was a full page ad in the smallest print.

Can you give us a lead as to where we can find that notice?

[Big Friend Ten (BFT)]

Dean,

I agree that a survey might yield a 30% response rate but I would expect from our members 100% accuracy should they care to participate.

Mark

[Dean Romig]

Okay... I'll go up to 89% accuracy.

[Big Friend Ten (BFT)]

So... who would "fudge" the facts to increase the value or THEIR Parkers???

[Duckman]

Originally Posted by Gary Carmichael Sr

I have often wondered just how many Parkers have survived! Out of roughly 242,000 give or take a few, PGCA members 10,000, Dealers 5,000, other collectors 20,000 Total 35,000 any one venture a estimate maybe I am way off? Gary

There are 3 and I have them all.

[Hammer Gun]

I am thinking that Parkers would have been cared for a little better than most because of the price paid at the time of purchase, A lot of people you talk to today about old guns always mentions grandpa's old rabbit ear gun and a lot of these could be Parkers, just waiting to be discovered. how many? who knows; but what we see here today does not seem to be that many Gary

[Autumn Daze]

I wonder how many were scraped during the WW2 era metal drives. My guess on remaining Parkers would be about 1/3 total production.

[Bill Murphy]

Come on, Dave. I have read the come ons about sending guns to England. I would not have given up a fluid steel Parker to those libbos. If they asked me to get on a boat with a Garand, OK, but send them my bird gun, no way.

[J.B. Books]

Originally Posted by Dave Suponski

I wonder how many were scraped during the WW2 era metal drives. My guess on remaining Parkers would be about 1/3 total production.

I have wondered the same thing myself, by 1942 ammo and gun manufacturer warnings on shooting Damascus and Twist barrels guns were well established. There was a promotional effort to make people believe such guns were essentially decorative items, most thought they were obsolete and dangerous. By that time the Dam/Twist guns were most likely in the hands of 2nd and 3rd owners. Patriotism was especially strong, people wanted to contribute to the war effort, sacrafice was the order of the day, rationing of gas, rubber, butter, sugar. I believe many Dam/Twist guns, hammer and hammerless, maybe a majority of them, were melted down to help produce the arsenal of democracy. Attrition of fluid steel guns is probably substantial but less than composite barrel guns.

From an article on the WWII scrap drives:

Many of the other materials collected couldn't readily be recycled either. Many who lived through the war remember collecting old newspapers, but apart from using them as packing material and such there was little to be done with them. A 1941 aluminum-scrap drive to help the plucky Brits pulled in 70,000 tons of aluminum pots and pans, but only virgin aluminum could be used to manufacture aircraft.

Iron and steel were a different story. These metals could be easily melted down and used for munitions. It's not as if the U.S. lacked domestic sources of iron ore, though. The real challenge was gearing up American industry for war production. That meant everything from increasing steel-making capacity to building more factories and designing better weapons. Recycling of steel and iron unquestionably helped. One campaign netted five million tons of steel in just three weeks, and scrap-metal drives continued for most of the war.Useful though recycled steel and iron were, some scrap drives went overboard. In addition to old streetcar tracks, wrought iron fences, church bells, and the like, people carted off relics of previous wars, including cannons, park statues, and other memorials. When the memorials were being rebuilt after the war, many wished they hadn't been so hasty.

[Parker Bachelder (Brad's Profile)]

O.K., I have tried to stay out of this post, but Pete you struck a nerve with the words "promotional effort". You are far too kind. I believe that the manufacturers intentionally bereated composite barrels for the sake of profit. I absolutely agree that those warnings on ammo boxes caused the premature surrender from service for many, many composite barrels. Fortunately there is a growing number of us that understand what happened.
Composite barrels are the "state of the art" in shotgunning history. I don't want to know how many have been lost to ignorance, but I agree that the number is most likely very high.


Brad