C-grade Bernard

[Richard Flanders]

Sounds reasonable to me. The wood/metal fit certainly seems perfect. The seller has added muzzle pics and some more info. There's no blank at the rib end. Hard to believe that would happen on an uncut C grade. Maybe the factory cut the bbls when they did the stock work? Seems they must have re-layed the ribs when they cut them if the muzzles do in fact touch. Wonder if they have any choke...

[Dean Romig]

My 28 ga. barrel tubes touch, have no choke, keels are in place and there is no blank at the end of the rib yet they first left Meriden as 24".

[C.O.B.]

I have no idea why Parker put big game animal engraveing on their shotguns. My CHE Bernard 16 has Elk on the floorplate and I'm sure the 20 does also..just to lazy to go down and look

[StubTwist]

To find out what the seller was describing about the vice marks and slots, I downloaded and edited with my PaintShop software the picture of the butt end of the stock since it was very dark photo.

I'm no expert or anything but I find it hard to believe a customer would request to order a gun so unfinished looking on a CH with Bernard steel barrels, let alone the factory allowing it go out the door like that. Has anyone seen something like this before?

[Gill Frye]

For what it would cost to get that gun...there is no way I could live with that.

[Dean Romig]

The auction has ended and some wise person bought the gun for the BIN price of $3750 which I think is a steal. If I didn't already have one that is not a project gun I would have jumped on that one without hesitation.

[Ruff Hunter]

The seller ended the auction early, but there is no buyer listed. If it was in fact sold to someone, it was an "off auction" sale. I requested the muzzle photos that were posted at the end of the auction. With the discrepancy over the listed and current barrel length, and upon seeing that the rib matting does not abate for that last 1/8" of the rib, the preponderance of the evidence strongly suggests that the barrels have been cut. As for those "vice" marks on the end of the butt, I recently had a walnut blank milled by a well known stock inletting company in Missouri and it returned with very similar marks on the unfinished stock butt. That would also seem to suggest that the stock is not factory original, though it is well mated to the metal. It is hard to fathom that Parker would have let a C grade go out the door in that condition. It is more likely that it was restocked and the final stages of fitting a recoil pad or butt plate were, for some long forgotten reason, left unfinished. I would be curious to know whether the seller did in fact sell this Parker, or whether he discovered some defect or other condition that caused him to close the auction early rather than disclose it.

[Angel Cruz Ortiz]

I had spoken with the owner when the gun was listed the first time, and the reserve price then was 6250.00. I had pointed out to him all the issues covered by you guys and he was certain it was all original. He had offer it to me after the first auction was over but I didn't have the cash. So he dropped the price 3000.00, not bad.

[Dean Romig]

Justin, I wouldn't be too hasty to "suggest that the stock is not factory original" as we have seen some things on Parker guns that have been quite surprising. I agree that "It is hard to fathom that Parker would have let a C grade go out the door in that condition." but, again, we have seen stranger things. 'Never say never' is the rule of thumb when it comes to Parker oddities. A Research Letter may support some or all of these anomalies... or it may not, but with a little bit of imagination and a smattering of experience in seeing things like this before, the gun could be "right".

[Ruff Hunter]

You are correct that one can "never say never" where these things are concerned. I have a CHE with 26" barrels that letters perfectly, yet the rib matting runs clear off the end of the tubes. That is why I phrased my conclusions in terms of an evidentiary "preponderance" and "suggests". However, I will stand with my conclusions, looking at the current state of the evidence as a whole, that it is more likely than not (i.e. a 51% or greater probability) that the barrels on this gun were cut and the stock is not original. Of course, that still leaves a 49% chance that the opposite is in fact true.

I would also add the following; that it can be argued that a sophisticated seller like the one with this C grade would have invested the small amount of money to "letter" the gun knowing that proving its originality would greatly enhance its fair market value at auction. The fact that he has not offered up a letter suggests in my mind that he's pretty certain that its been altered and doesn't want to see what the letter will show. Admittedly, that reasoning is a bit speculative, but I would submit that it is sound common sense and can't be completely ignored as a relevant factor in the process of evaluating this Parker. In summary, it would be a gamble against the odds to buy this gun on the assumption that it is in its original configuration, IMHO. All that being said, I really, really liked this gun, and would have bought it for the opening price in a heartbeat, notwithstanding its previously mentioned issues.