BH Again, Help with Value, Restore or not?

[Steve Hodges]

Nice gun

[Bruce Day]

Historically, people with money and desire to acquire the best Parkers have sought high condition guns, high condition being defined as what a Parker looked like when new. Most restorations fall short and value has been reduced. I can privately point to specific situations where that has occured. When the restoration has been so exact and true to Parker standards at the time the gun was made, I have personally seen increases in value, and I mentioned several above. There are more, but it requires a level of skill that most restorers lack and for most restorations, the restoration is obvious, which has historically reduced value.

By the way, the Czar's gun, at $265,000 the highest selling Parker in history, was publicly disclosed to have a replaced stock. Value destroyed?

How you or I feel about it doesn't matter. If you want a sweat stained gun, the history in the market is that stains and significant use indications reduce value. Just watch the market and keep track of good guns for a number of years, I think you might reach the same conclusions. What you see here in this forum is only a small part of the Parker collecting community and I suggest to you that the top players who pay large sums do not hang on this forum.

[edgarspencer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Day

What you see here in this forum is only a small part of the Parker collecting community and I suggest to you that the top players who pay large sums do not hang on this forum.

What I see here, as opposed to what you "suggest", is a pretty nice cross section of the "Parker collecting community". I'm at a loss as to how you suppose to know the net worth of those who 'hang' here, what kind of players we represent, or what we choose to collect. I had dinner last Friday night with a wonderful bunch of guys, many of whom are, to use your term, top players. No one amongst that group at the annual meeting, or at the shooting grounds, exhibited any distinction in their appreciation for the guns we all brought to show or shoot. The man who sits on one hundred ones, sits no lower than the man who sits on one hundred one hundreds.

[MarketHunter]

Kensal,

You have to understand that Bruce travels in the Inner Circle of Parkerdom. He is parlay to insight and information neither you nor I could dream of having.


Destry

[Eric Olson]

Great - one question answered - to leave it origional.

[C.O.B.]

I wouldn't touch that gun in any way shape or form. The V grade replacement barrels might hurt it some but they are documented in the letter. What a great gun even without the original damascuss bbls. If it were mine I'd look for a set of 20ga damascuss bbls and have them fitted to the gun. There around I sold a set this summer. My one question relates to the checkered butt as a BH would have a skelton butt plate and I saw no mention of this in the letter.

Buce I much prefer the straight grip over a PG. I think they carry better and are faster to the shoulder. The straight grip guns outnumber the PG ones for me.

[AmarilloMike]

Originally Posted by Rich Anderson

The V grade replacement barrels might hurt it some but they are documented in the letter.

I can't find any mention of them in the letter.

Originally Posted by Bill Murphy

When discussing the fluid steel barrels on this B Grade 20, posters seem to forget or not know that these barrels were installed at Remington by Parker Gun Works employees and have factory markings. They are factory original. With two sets of Remington repair codes, I doubt that any work done on the gun was done by anyone other than Parker Gun Works employees.

I looked in The Parker Story, page 158 and the picture provided by Eric above. I interpret one repair code as RJ3, which I translate as meaning the repair or alteration or whatever was done in November of 1940. The 3 in RJ3 has no lookup chart in TPS that I can find.

The other repair code XP3 I can only translate that the work was done in November, the P not being in the year codes. Am I misreading the P? Is it a B (1955)?

The "V Grade 20 gauge" stamped on the lug matches the protocol shown in the picture of the lug of the D grade 20 on page 162, which is in the chapter about Parker/Remingtons.

In TPS I can't find any examples of the serial number stamped in the same location as on Eric's gun. But there aren't very many pictures of Parker/Remington barrel flats either. I don't own any Remington Parkers and so don't have any examples to compare this to.

On page 129 in TPS they discuss reports of aftermarket ejectors by third parties and give an apparently first hand account of a BH, serial number 79051. with non-standard ejectors.

The pictures of Eric's knuckle and forend iron look identical to my Parker ejectors guns. The serial number on Eric's forend iron is in the same location as my ejector guns. The May 1 1901 patent date appears on Eric's forend iron in the same place as it does on my guns. It seems to me that someone would have had to tig weld up, re-stamp, re-case color, and re-patina the serial number in the forend iron or they started with a forend iron without a serial number on it like the Parker/Remington factory would have. Same thoughts on the water table. Seems to me unlikely that a rascal would go to all that trouble for such a high cost to low benefit ratio effort.

I don't know when Parker or Parker/Remington first started putting "Overload Proved" in an oval on the barrel flats or "Made in the USA" but there might be some time information there.

Eric that is a cool gun. Thanks for posting it here.




Best,


Mike

[Bill Murphy]

I don't know about the repair codes, only that they are repair codes. As for "third party ejectors", that's not what they are. They are Parker ejectors. As for the forend, no part of an extractor forend, including wood, was used by Parker or Remington to make an ejector gun. This is not the forend that came on the gun. As for the V Grade markings on the lug, Remington replacement barrels were almost always marked V Grade. Only barrel lugs on Remington made guns were normally marked with the actual grade of the gun. This gun is absolutely right, and factory modified, regardless of any omission in the letter. Rich's statement about the letter documenting the barrels was an oversight, but PGCA letters will almost never address any specific Remington modifications.

[Bill Murphy]

After another look, I think PJ3 is June 1940, and XF3 is December 1937, the barrel date. The ejectors and forend were probably installed with the barrels. The single trigger was installed probably on one or the other of the dates. What a piece of Parker-Remington history.

[Richard Flanders]

Good for you Eric. I can think of only ONE thing that I would ever even dream of doing to that gun and that would be to get the original barrels back if they are still in existence, and if they were in bad shape in some way, I'd have them refinished/restored by the very best, regardless of cost. And I'd keep both sets of bbls, of course, and get the gun into a very nice and well-fitted trunk case. That would make a stunning set.

Rich: if you look at the butt there are two plugged screw holes so it looks like it may have had a skeleton butt that was removed.