doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Just Bought "Pecks Bad Boy" / George W. Peck Gun

Who's Peck ?

I'm having trouble even thinking about shooting a single triggered hammer gun.

eightbore,
This is gonna take some time to explain.

Sam Koch (pronounced cook) made a living for most of his life stocking Parkers here in Buffalo... years ago a Koch stock was considered as much of an upgrade as an Infallible trigger...

I don't want to get into another shoot out because someone else thinks all non factory work is a downgrade, so anyone is feeling frosty, save it...I'm trying to have a quiet conversation with eightbore..

Sam (and his son Paul) stocked primarily Parkers and Browning superposeds, but stocked anything you wanted including numerous military rifle conversions with Monte Carlo combs

Sam stocked mostly parkers from 1920's until WW II, at which time he landed a contract to build Browning 50cal bolt assemblies...after the war he returned to Parker stock making with a special interest in factory patterns...which according to Paul, he didn't like doing...he wanted to change the drop, he wanted to improved and refine his work but his customers always wanted original looking...

Everyone who owns a Koch stocked gun knows they have something special...in the 70's a Koch stocked Superposed near new could be had (around here) for about $600, while a (non-original) Koch stocked Superposed cost arond $900...and I think it was about the same for the field grade Parkers though I wasn't after a Parker back then.

Not far from Buffalo there was a very large hunting/fishing/art store called G&R Tackle...it wasn't unusual to walk in and see 5 factory engraved full stocked Schoenours, 7 or 8 factory engraved Merkels, Westley's, Parkers, Volcanics, Model 70's Newtons, and 50 others to look at before you got to the utility grade guns....There were even engravers working right on the showroom floor that you could stand and watch all day if you wanted to...It was kind of like our own local Griffin & Howe gunshop... Back then I thought stores like this peppered the whole country...That was right around the time Sam Koch had passed, but before that, people across the country sent their Parkers to G&R to be stocked by the Koch's...and there were a good many guns still kicking around that he and Paul had restocked.There's a member of this system (Tom28) that I think may have been an old time G&R regular...he may have a more accurate description of the relationship between Sam Koch and G&R Tackle...Sam was known for the creative ways he sometimes jazzed things up without abandoning the classic look...those "beavertail cheekpieces" (not my word) were common on guns where he had artistic license to do so...though the one on the Parker in question looks altered...you can see in the first photo where someone other than the stockmaker ghosted the cheekpiece (at the top) they planed it so much... My guess is that the only person who would do that to graded shotgun is a gambler. If the gun was stocked after WW II it would have been marked with a steel stamp under the buttplate or recoli pad, which is non-applicable in this case. I once owned a Koch stocked Win 54 with same whole west side cheekpiece (and Monte Carlo)...I still have two pre-war Koch stocked guns but the cheekpieces are totally different, even from each other.

Many Koch guns had recoil pads and Monte's...I don't like either.

There is no way to prove for certain who actually stocked the gun, unless the guy finds a stock makers mark somewhere, but walk into G&R, and it was readily apparant when the gun had a Koch made stock...I don't know if I can capture the look with photography or not...it's not that their guns looked different really, it was the way they masterfully executed their work, lines, and checkering...you've probably seen them gunshows...especially on Superposeds...you can plane a cheekpiece completely off a Koch stocked Super, but you can't hide the Koch checkering that looks like the wood grew into diamonds rather than being cut into diamonds...no other stockmakers work looks quite like it...nobody else made as many cross-eyed Supers and Parkers as they did either...I've seen two cross-eyed Diana grades by Koch...both were made for the late Colt author Loren Smith...

Like I said, the guy who owns the gun will know, just like everyone else who owns a Koch stocked gun knows...that they have something special...

Sam Koch apprenticed under Emil Flues and was his lifelong friend and co-worker (which could explain the rib modifications, Flues was into detachable ribs)

Koch's signature boils down to this...

He didn't stock guns with wood, he figured out how to lavish guns with wood ...so that the owner could feel that his gun was something more than the sum of all the parts.

I wish I could explain it better.

I don't think you need to Mr. Chambers...it seems Sam Koch could touch the "soul" of the gun, and that explanation sounds pretty good to me.
Merry Christmas.

Very poetic, Robert. Thanks for the reply. I would like to find one of these "crosseyed Brownings or Parkers". My "crosseyed Parkers" are not what anyone would call artistic but I would be interested in seeing or purchasing one that is. Thanks to anyone who can help me find one.

Quiet conversations are best left to PM's.

Buffalo, Montana? Buffalo, Texas? Buffalo, New York?

I would surmise the reason customers wanted their gun restocked in a Parker-like manner is self-evident.

OK...I've been corrected...this country was peppered with great gunshops back then...how could I forget Creekside Gunshop (Turnbull) and all the others...

Gregsy,

That's Buffalo NY....as for the PM's...I love point/counterpoint...but when someone misuses counterpoint as way to jack somebody else up, they should realize that point/counterpoint goes both ways...in other words, you can't jump on a thread, hurl some half-baked mud, and expect kind words in return .


At least part of the reason(s) Koch did factory shaping and checkering was his relationship with Flues. From late Depression to 1947 or so, Emil Flues re-worked Parkers, one after the next...His journeyman Sam Koch did the woodwork at least some or most of the time. Emil's customers also insisted on factory engraving patterns...There are probably well over 100 floating around...nowadays people who don't know what they are call them Pachmayr upgrades...

Collectors always have some vague name for guns they don't understand...you know...it's a "trade gun" or "it's a guild gun"...hardware store gun...now we have "clones" and cheap copys and Italian knock-offs as new pigeon holes...

If this keeps up, we'll need need waders and a thesaurus just to understand what some of these guys are talking about...

I'm sure you've heard the the new stuff...like...

I got a cryo stress relieved barrel, with a micro-lam stock, and a cantelevered mount, .3 nano-sec lock time...I'm shootin' saboted boat tails, using extreme ball powder and mountain dew primers..

Robert, Emil Flues is represented in early Parker order books. He bought guns as well as parts to fix and rebuild guns.

Eightbore.
That's news to me...I learned about his Parker association from interviewing his friends...Sal Licata, Paul Koch, Paul Brobiel, and Whit. at least some of those upgrades are are in Canada, as he did a lot of work for guys from the Cherry Hill Country Club in Canada.
Is there anyway I could get a copy of those Parker order entries? If the information I have is correct, those orders will most likely be after 1933 (is that about when the Depression ended?)...because after the Depression he moved to Niagara Street and began a decade plus of working almost exclusively for the guys of Brobiel & Canazzi Yaght Club & Marina...and the Cherry Hill Country Club(almost the same group of sportsmen)...according to Paul Brobiel, Parkers were like blue chip stock to these guys

Robert, I fail to see the "blue chip stock" connection with Parker Brothers guns. Old ads in my collection indicate that graded Parkers were being offered for sale at severely discounted prices on the used gun market and Parker Brothers was sending them out to dealers several times before they finally "stuck" and were successfully marketed at the retail level. The manufacture and sale of new graded Parkers was very abbreviated in the Depression era. By the way, Parker order books with any substance ended in 1919. The mention of Emil Flues in books I have examined were apparently 1919 and before. Another gunsmith of renown mentioned in the Parker order books was Frank Novotny. Of course, Fox trigger inventor Joseph Kautsky was mentioned based on the fact that he was in the retail gun business and ordered Parkers for his store.

Who in the heck was Peck ?