What mistakes have you made buying Parkers?

[Bill Murphy]

"Not buy" or sell to make a few bucks is the most common mistake. Examples in my case are selling a #2 frame 32" factory 3" because I felt that no VH 20 is ever going to be worth $1000. Another potential mistake would have been not buying a wonderful little VH 28 because it was a nice restock with a blued receiver. $2600 sounded like a lot money at the time, but the gun has perfect barrels with all correct bore and choke dimensions. It is also a lightly used seventh 28 gauge made by Parker Brothers. There are thousands of examples of collectors not buying a gun because it is overpriced TODAY. The market price of a class of guns is not the most important factor to consider. Even more important is that the particular variation, not just a class of guns, will disappear from the market because they are all bought up. Then they disappear into collections for decades. In my opinion, long barrel smallbores, even 16s, and Super Foxes are a class of guns that will disappear in the next few years, to be injected into collections for years. Overpaying for such guns today is just something you have to do if you want to own one. If you want to own an AHE trap, and one comes on the market, you have to buy it, even if overpriced. WHY? Because the next time you see it or one like it, it will be in a luxury auction and it will sell for $30000, way more than the first time you saw one. OK, that's my story and my advice.