Pete: This info is abstracted from some chapters in my new book, Parker Guns: Shooting Flying and the American Experience (Collector Books of Paducah KY, scheduled for release summer 2008). John Blaze worked for Wesson ca.1869/70 in Springfield MA. A number of Wesson's shotgun people went to work for Parker including John Stokes, a lockmaker who invented a rebounding lock used both by Wesson and later Parker Bros. As to John Blaze, I have no further info. The Parker Story, using the Meriden City Directory for 1875 shows Stokes working at Parker, but not Blaze.
As to pictures, my new book has the two RIA Wesson Damascus barrels (and guns) mentioned (s/n 117 and unmarked) plus another s/n 114 from Jim Julia, along with the Ethan Allen Stubb Twist (mine), and Ira Paine's Parker Laminated (Julia) and three Colts: Twist, Damascus and Laminated (RIA), not to mention a Parker CHE with Bernard Twist (Julia) and quite a few other examples of the barrelmaker's art. The images are all on disc with resolutions from 6,000 to 8,000 kb, and my el cheapo computer can't open the files. My publisher has the publishing program to do so, but I have to rely on the catalog pictures for reference. Sorry.
W.W.Greener once commented how the English makers favored barrels that shot the best (English Laminated), while "continental makers" (buzzwords for Belgium, France and Germany) favored barrels that looked the best (Damascus and Bernard). In the end, fashion won out and the Brits came to crave Damascus with the finest swirls, as in "My barrels and thus my gun's finer than yours"--hence Fine Gun. By the way, I just picked up Greener's 1884 second edition and it's an eye-opener how different it is from the 9th edition (1909) that has been so often reprinted--much changed over a quarter century! but the 1909 book is often quoted out of time frame.
As to the citations for letters from Parker Bros in re; making their own barrels, John Davis wrote an article about it in Parker Pages. The ad I refer to was from a December 1879 issue of Spirit of the Times; The National Sporting Library in Middleburg VA has a full run of Spirit and also Turf, Field and Farm, the 1830s et seq pulp weeklies that preceeded Parker's The American Sportsman(Oct.1871) and Forest and Stream (August 1873). Lots of info out there for the otherwise unemployed who might have the wherewithal to camp out away from home and read old stuff.
I spent the last 4 years (almost full time) writing it all down. If I sell as many as my first book, Parker Guns: The "Old Reliable" (Safari Press 1997, 2004 2nd printing), now just over 8,000 copies, my royalties will be less than McDonald's minimum wage for my trouble, and I don't get any free french fries. Refresh my recollection: is "PeteM" the Pete with a table I met in Vegas? EDM
