Cliff Green Parker's for Sale

[Bill Murphy]

Thank you for all the thanks for my post on Cliff Green. By the way, in 1947, the Great Eastern had 343 entrants. 2013 will be the first year since the forties that there will be no Great Eastern. Remington has dropped their sponsorship. This year, my club will have the 77th North South Skeet Shoot, the only NSSA shoot in the country that exceeds the Great Eastern for number of shoots held. Keep in mind that these .410 scores were shot with paper shells, low gun, and variable delay target release. In 1947, when Cliff Green shot a 91 with the little BHE .410, the winning score was 95. Charles Lyman Jr. shot a 93 in All-Bore, and Charles Lyman lll broke 90. I wonder if they were shooting Dr. Lyman's Parker Invincible #233,565? That would make two great guns being shot in the same skeet shoot. The shoot records for the 1947 Great Eastern were taken from a seventeen page hand typed synopsis of all events and all 343 competitors provided by the Remington Gun Club at Lordship.

[C.O.B.]

I stopped shooting registered skeet years ago but recall when you left a popular shoot like The State Shoot or the Coast Guard you signed up for the following year or you didn't get in. Now you can walk in on the day of the shoot and get on a squad.

[Bill Murphy]

It really doesn't matter that some shooting sports are on a downturn, the history is still there. Glass ball shooting is not very active today, but the glass ball guns are still bringing the big buck and the history of the shooters is more interesting than it ever was. Who ever thought that NSSA skeet guns would be as interesting as the Dr. Lyman Invincible or the Cliff Green BHEs? My goal in collecting is to not let the ownership and provenance of the guns be separated from the guns themselves. Many of my Parkers are not acquired for condition, but for available provenance. I realize that the secondary sale of these guns may not be as easy as similar high condition guns without provenance, but they are more interesting to me while I own and shoot them.

[C.O.B.]

It is nice to carry the history of the gun from one caretaker to another. It gives much more meaning to the gun than just when it was made and where it was originally shipped to.

What was going through Cliff Greens head as he stood on station 4 with the 410 shooting the third round and he was clean so far?