Why is a 12 ga Parker a "boat anchor" these days?

[Bill Murphy]

Brian's post reminds me of a funny story. The Parker Research Committee was hard at work at Ilion in 1998 when a Remington employee came into the archives and gave us a telegram or cable from an Italian police department. They implied a Parker shotgun had been used in a crime and asked if Remington could help them in their investigation. The Remington employee just said, "Can you guys handle this?" I assume Mark Conrad or Ron Kirby took the appropriate action. The serial number was very early but I can't remember whether we found the gun in the records. I still have a copy of the communication in my files. The week we were in the archives, we were asked to reply to any Parker related correspondence that came to Remington during that time.