The Story Behind The Story

[Pa SxS]

Most of you PGCA members have received your Parker Pages and have read the wonderful article by Mike MCKinney concerning the "Landfill Parker." As an old New England talk show host, Larry Glick, used to say, here's the story behind the story.

Mike briefly mentioned about me contacting him but I want to tell you what brought this all about. I received a research request from "Mrs. Weaver" in the beginning of February 2017. She was a non-PGCA member and so there was a check enclosed for $100.00. I don't have the research form she sent me so my memory is a little cloudy but I could tell from the comments that she didn't know much about shotguns, let alone Parker Bros. shotguns. The gun tuned out to be a GHE .410 made in 1931. Luckily, she included her telephone number on the research form. I decided to call her because I wanted to tell her she had a valuable shotgun if she already didn't know that.

So I called her telephone number and got an answering machine. I left a message telling her who I was and that I was calling about the research letter request I'd received. Nobody called me back and I figured she wasn't interested in talking to me. About a month later while taking my afternoon nap (I know, I know) I was awakened by the phone ringing and groggily answered. Most of the time I don't answer if I don't recognize the caller ID but I answered the phone. Still a little confused, I had a hard time understanding the guy on the phone due to his southern accent. He explained that he was Mrs Weaver's son Fletch. We had about a 1/2 hour conversation and I told him that his gun was worth a good amount of money if in decent condition. I asked him a bunch of questions about the gun but I don't know how accurate his response was since he was not familiar with Parker shotguns. He did say that it had a steel buttplate which I told him was not original. He also mentioned that the gun was being cleaned and inspected at a local gunsmith. I cautioned him about not trusting a valuable gun to a gunsmith who may not have knowledge about vintage shotguns.

Mrs. Weaver and Fletch live in western North Carolina and I knew that Mike McKinney lived in that general area. I asked Fletch if it was OK to contact Mike and see if Mike could examine the gun in person. He said that would be good. I then contacted Mike and gave him the lowdown on this GHE .410 and the phone number for Fletch. Mike was very interested and he said he would call them.

I talked to Mike after his meeting with Mrs. Weaver and Fletch and Mike said there was some more interesting things about this gun but he wouldn't tell me, he said to wait till the Parker Pages article appeared. That's when I read about the circumstances on how Mrs. Weaver acquired the gun.

Helping people like this gives you a good feeling. I'm glad Fletch is now the new owner of that GHE .410!