NEW PARKER OWNER IN NEED OF HELP !

[Aristeidis Tsesmelis]

Dear Friend's

My name is Aristeidis Tsesmelis and i am from Greece....first of all let me apologize about my very poor english . I will try to explain
you my problem as good as i can.....

I do own a parker double barel gun that is in my family since the late 60' and i would like to have a full picture about its identification.....
Trying the identification link on parkerguns.org i still have a small problem understanding the grade of my weapon.....


The s.number is 72485 so i know that the making date was at 1876 .I got the date from the identification link , even if the gun itself says it was made at MAR 15 1875

On the guns barrel rip u can read the following PARKER BROTHER MAKERS.MERIDEN.CONN.PARKER SPECIAL STEELL , so from the identification link i can see that the barrel
type is the PARKER SPECIAL

On the barrel the FRAME SIZE BY GAUGE is marked with a '1' so i can understand that the gauge use is 12,16.20

My main problem is the HAMMERLESS BARREL TYPE BY PARKER GRADE......on the idefication link there is a example of one of the guns simular to the one i own ..the gun on the
picture dose have marked on its watertable the following


V
146217

I understand tha the V makes the gun a PARKER VH VULCAN STEEL and its serial number is 146217,the only diffrence with my gun is that above the serial number there is on more number ...so at my own weapon u can see on the watertable the following


3
72485
D
MAR 15 1875

Dose this make my weapon a PARKER DH - GRADE 3 TITANIC STEEL and is it a rare type or a more offten ?
The gun is still in use by my father and in a extremly good shape , also having ejectors...

I am sure u get a lot of questions every day but still it would be nice if u could give me some help with my question if u find the time !

[Autumn Daze]

Aristeidis, Sorry to say that your gun is not listed in the "Serialization Book" but if the gun is original and unaltered the barrel marking of "Parker Special Steel" would indicate a G or Grade 2 gun.

You can order a research letter from our home page and whatever info we have on the gun will be sent to you.

[Dean Romig]

It would seem that your Parker was originally made with Damascus barrels but possibly returned to Parker Bros. at some time later to have the barrels replaced with fluid steel barrels. Titanic Steel barrels were the standard for the grade 3 but the Special Steel was less expensive. This is all hypothetical of course and the barrel replacement may have been done by another expert gunsmith.

[Autumn Daze]

Thank You Dean. What Dean is saying is that a gun with a serial number in the 72,000 serial range was too early to have left the factory with fluid steel barrels. The gun would have been equipped with damascus barrels. All the more reason to get a letter on the gun.

[Aristeidis Tsesmelis]

First of all thank u very much for u intressed and help ! And again sorry about my bad english....
I my self am a Military Gunsmith of the Greek army , but still my knowlege of this kind of double barrels and there history is very low....
I did make a resarch on the pictures of the indefication links at the GRADE part....and saw the G Grade 2 pictures of the Hammerless type as the one i do own...
The G Grade 2 is not simular at all with the one we got from my grandfather but the engravings are 100% the same with the DH GRADE 3 Hammerless type....

But still in comper with the gun on the picture i told u about in my first mail...... http://parkerguns.org/images/ident/grade.jpg

my should just say D and not 3 as it dose....
72485 72485
D
MAR 15 1875

[Aristeidis Tsesmelis]

Sorry wrong type o writing

My guns should say on D 72485
but it says 3 72485 D 15 MAR 1875

How can i send u a picture ?

[Aristeidis Tsesmelis]

I will try to send u a Picture via the Reply hopping that i will make it....DSC00102.jpg

[Autumn Daze]

I was under the impression (wrongly) that the gun was a G because of the barrel marking. Look's like you have a D grade gun there...1 grade higher than a G...Congratulations

[Aristeidis Tsesmelis]

Well i guess it solves the mystery haha....

So we can say that the Weapon is a PARKER DH GRADE 3 having a PARKER SPECIAL STELL BARREL ?

[Dean Romig]

Yes, that is correct. And the Parker Special Steel barrels were the standard fluid steel barrels for the Grade 2 guns but, again, they were less expensive that the Titanic Steel barrels so this might be the reason your Grade 3 gun has Grade 2 barrels on it.