Ed-great stuff here- There's an old Blues song- "Keep On Truckin', Mama" (use same chord frame as Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" if you like- just don't order the toasted white bread and the two friend chickens with a Coke) I would re-phrase to : Keep On Digressin' Big Ed, because as you get going, you Sir are indeed a FountainHead of Parker knowledge. Wow.
I don't use either 12 AHE because: they are for my two grandsons' future after I am gone, they are way heavy and long barreled, and both guns were ordered for live pigeons- choked tighter than the hinges of Hell itself. If you want a using Parker, buy a 12 Trojan 30" M&F (very commonly found) and have it rechoked for your shooting style: flushing dog, pointing dog, no dog-- Would you take a valuable unaltered high grade ejector double, whether Fox, Ithaca, LeFever or Parker and have briley chokes installed? Why not a release trigger and possibly a Morgan adjustable pad. Why not a set of fuzzy dice hanging from a bungee cord anchored to a sling swivel stud soldered to the under rib _ as the Kraut drillings seem to feature- and the list goes on.
I have all the records I need, as over a few years time-long time ago now, before the Larry Bear Parker book came out- I had a trusted friend take them, one at a time, to Mr. DelGrego in upstate NY-and his letter(s) document the aprox time they were made in Meriden. Why spend today's money on the "wild goose chase" the PGCA lads have pursued, and more credit to all of them for their devotion- and still not be 100% sure. All those older records were apparently hand written- does anyone recall the "hanging chads" in Florida that got Bushy POTUS instead of Uncle Al?? Coal dusty hang tags, old hand ledger records that make me think of Bobby Boy Crachitt and his Big Boss Man, Ebby Scrooge- a shiny-***ed clerk at a desk on a tall stool writing by hand the day's tally of completed guns- sounds like Dickens to me.
I sold a "butched-up" 12 ga. Trojan to a friend last year- some idiot had written his full name on the bottom of the receiver with an electro=etching pen' "Archibald Stanley Hollbrooke III" or something like that- Tommy ONLY buys (and keeps- doesn't resell) Trojan Parkers (he has about 18 right now) because, as he so wisely said "They can't counterfeit a Trojan to a BH or whatever, due to the difference in the shape of the frame"!!
On his death bed, actor Orson Welles was rumored to have said "Keep Ted Turner and his ***-%%%^^^ watercolors away from my movies". Wonder if same scenario, the last Parker man in the family might have said "And keep that &*&-$%$#@# Auggie Pachmayer from 'counterfeiting" my shotguns". Just wondering!!
