Old Parker Found... Need Guidance

[Bill Murphy]

Price indicates that an early gun with Damascus barrels is posted in the stock books as a D regardless of actual degree of decoration or grade. This appears to be what we would normally call a 0 or 1 grade gun. Very early guns were priced by barrel material and/or quality more than by degree of decoration until above a certain grade.

[Austin W Hogan]

Bill; I think D refers to Dollar Grade, in the era before s/n 6000, when price lists were changing rapidly and frequently. My 3215 ( pictured in both TPS and Serialization..) is pretty clearly a $200 or $250 (5 or6?) grade and my 3291 is pretty clearly a $135 (2) grade but both show as D for dollar. Both have Damascus barrels, but with little similarity. My twist barrel guns in this era show as T.
3215 has been well studied; the photo of it in TPS concludes that it is " the highest grade of the time". I can count 6 lamina in the damascus pattern; in my opinion that is the fore runner of grade 6.
Publication intervals, price lists, mailing speeds, shop operations and shipping dates are not well coordinated in this era; we will probably never determine the intended grade of many of these guns

Best, Austin

[John Truitt]

Sir,

If it is not too much trouble, please post/ add a picture of the breech end of your barrels and the rifle tube and its muzzle end attachment.
I have a friend who has read about these type of rifle insert tubes and has two guns which have small cut outs at the breech end which he believes was to fit rifle tubes. He is currently having sets of these made so he may shoot them at the Vintagers rifle competitions.
I have only heard about these types of inserts but never seen any before.

Thank you,
John Truitt

[Austin W Hogan]

David: I am not sure where you live, but if it is any where Pin Tail Point Md, please bring it to the annual meeting. This gun is a real challenge to attempt to grade. We cannot see the damascus pattern in the photos; the gold shield indicates the upper half of the grade ranges; the sparse engraving the lower half. The gun appears to be listed in the archive; perhaps the Research Committee will have some input.
If you are able to come to Pin Tail, many of us will have a grand time analyzing it.
Best, Austin

[david schmidt]

Gents,

Thanks for all the feedback thus far! Here's some more photos of the stock, etc.











Here's the muzzle end of the rifled insert, with the brass keeper. There are no machined cut-outs. It just nests inside the muzzle.


Here's the breech end, and as you can see there's a mating extractor on the insert.


Sorry... I'm in North Central Indiana, about a half hour from South Bend.