GregSY: I own every American written and American published shotgunning book from the first one published in 1783 thru WWI, and have read them all. I own 21 years of Shooting snd Fishing (1886-1906) and have speed read and/or gleaned all 100 million words (estimated). I have almost all the issues of The American Sportsman and Rod and Gun (published by Parker Brothers 1871 to 1876) and Forest and Stream from the beginning 8/1873 through the 1880s.
I spend time researching at the National Sporting Library in Middleburg VA, and have access to the rarest of shooting flying books in the temperature and humidity controlled rare book room, not to mention all the back issues of Turf, Field and Farm (1865 et seq), The Spirit of the Times (1831 et seq). I have owned, randomly, about 50 bound editions of The American Field and Forest and Stream--Rod and Gun up to the 1920s. In other words, I am well read when it comes to the Parker Gun.
Suffice it to say that the circumstances of the Parker sale are well documented in The Parker Story by Price, Mullins, Gunther and Parker; and in my Parker Guns: "The Old Reliable" (Safari Press (1997, 2004 2nd print.). Further, the DuPont Company magazine covered the sale, as did the Sporting Goods Dealer in the 1930s.
As to the absence of products liability litigation way back when, Americans have always been litigious, going back to the "peppercorn" judgments of the 1700s, where a contentious plaintiff would prove up his nominal point-of-honor and the jury would award one pepercorn damages. You will be surprised, so you say, that "..anyone in the 1930s was concerned with product liability." I cite a 1900 case in my new book in re: a well-used SxS exploding in the hands of an Italian immigrint, who sued the gunmaker, powder company, shell maker, and seller after he loaded his own shells with dense smokeless powder using a bulk measure. There's nothing new under the sun when it comes to numbnuts wanting others to compensate them for their mistakes. I should mention that I was a products liability insurance defense attorney until I retired from the law in 1981 to go sailing.
As to "victims of ambulance chasers," I can't help recalling the Pogo comic strip, where the sage possum says, "We have found the enemy and he is us." I had my fill by 1981, of silly plaintiff's attorneys making specious arguments and getting silly cases past silly judges to even more silly juries. By then we had lost our national identity of being a country of laws, and had become an anarchy of fact, every silly claim getting it's day, or week, or more likely, years in court. Sailing is a better deal for me, plus I can read about the old guns and the oldtime shooting flying, and write some of it down.
Don't be too hard on the new Parker Bros O/U people. I spoke at length to them at the Vintager shoot, and they are genuinely surprised at the negative feedback. Their idea was to "Honor" a venerable old name that had been out of use for three-quarters of a century. I knew about this project since the 1999 Vegas antique arms show, so it was many years from concept to fruition. I questioned the selection of name then, but now see the logic. In business--show biz or commerce or industry--the mantra is, "Call me anything, but not late for dinner." Well, no, not exactly this, but by calling the new gun Parker Bros there was an instant buzz, the gun got noticed, and now will rise or fall on its own merits. Think of all the foreign made guns with names that can't be pronounced or even spelled by ordinary people. Parker Bros has a nice ring to it; Whether it strikes a responsive chord with buyers remains to be seen; I mean buyers of trap/Sporting Clays/Skeet guns, not board games, if you get what I mean. EDM
