John,
Thanks for showing this interesting box of Parker Bros. related bits and pieced. I look forward to seeing your pictures of the items, especially the Parker markings. Meanwhile I’ll take a shot at identifying what I can.
At 10 to 11 o’clock a Parker standard butt plate in seemingly pretty good condition, possibly removed when a rubber recoil pad was added to lengthen LOP or reduce felt recoil. There is likely a single number on the back side. At 12 o’clock are seen two Parker Bros. combination pocket tools: 1) to re-cap de-primed shells, 2) to extract swollen/stuck shells from a chamber or shell loading sleeve, and 3) to supply a useless turn-screw (screw driver) blade tapered in two directions certain to bugger screw slots and heads. These are somewhat rare and only very occasionally turn up on eBay; in over 12 years of watching and bidding on reloading tools on eBay I have only seen one of these, which I happened to win because it was mixed in with a whole bunch of otherwise badly photographed and uninteresting common tools, and once one of the type with a turned wooden handle, which I lost to another PGCA member who later introduced himself to me after the auction was over. Below them is a splinter for-end which appears to have grade 2 or GH three point checking, but a rather plain fore-end tip. The serial number of this fore-end stamped in the metal on the side we can’t see may be of particular interest to someone on this forum. At 2 o’clock a smooth finish cast iron re-capping tool; quite common unless it has raised cast in letters on the side we can’t see identifying it as Parker Bros., in which case the casting would be a bit rougher and the tool quite rare. Next, to its left a brass shot shell which appears to be nickel plated and is likely marked as being Parker; it looks pretty clean on the outside and in the mouth and might bring $30 to $50 these days at auction on eBay. To its left is the ram portion of a walnut, or perhaps, Rosewood or Cocobolo reversible de-capping/wad ramming tool which is missing its turned knob end cap. The short de-priming pin in this bit of tool looks to be the kind used when reloading the earlier balloon head Boxer Primed drawn brass style shells. The tool to its left is a mystery to me; the little stub suggests a re-capper, but I cannot determine how it would work. It might serve as a Berdan de-primer, or an internal fowling scrapper, but again I am not familiar with this tool, and the tip of it, which might provide an additional clue is not visible. At 5 o’clock is the labeled box for one of the combination tools seen at 12 o’clock. These boxes are not often seen, and this one looks like it has had its corners scotch taped at some point. Whether or not the bottom is still with the top certainly will affect its value. The fragility of these pasteboard boxes is well known to all tool collectors. Between the center and 6 o’clock are three powder/shot measures. The bottom one is definitely a Parker Bros. Witness the amount of indefinite stamping on the bottom, the fine teeth in the adjustment slot, and the tiny visible screw head on the underside of the metal shaft into which the wad rammer wood handle is inserted. All Parker marked measures in my collection have two screws securing their handles. I would love to examine the other two measures to see just how they are marked since to this date I have never seen a Parker measure with this smaller shape. At 7 o’clock is a general purpose seemingly hinged stamped tin container which could serve many purposes - tobacco, snuff, matches, primers, wads, etc. Perhaps someone more familiar with the full range of Parker domestic products has noted something like this in a Parker catalog and will comment. In any case, if Parker marked it will be of interest to any Parker collector. Over all it seems to me that this group of tools belonged to and was used by someone who owned and used an early Parker Bros. gun.
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Bob Roberts
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01-01-2011, 07:14 PM
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