Joe, there's more to the shooting flying experience and mystique than polished parts. Murphy
Bill: I don't know who Homeless Joe is but I am familiar with your credentials, shot against you in the pigeon ring, fondeled and photographed your guns, had our wine and cigars, you remember the drill. But the one thing I don't remember--ever--in a real-person, real-time face-to-face discussions of double guns, no matter the maker, no matter the locale, is the innuendo that constantly seeps onto the various Internet sites, almost always by persons the well traveled and well-connected of us don't know and/or can't identify.
And the dig is almost always a variation of the same old theme: Some undisclosed friend told them some vague thing. Now there's provenance for you! Write that up and send it off to SSM or the DGJ and see which way it lands. The safety valve here on the Internet, however, is that nobody in his right mind would ever rely on the unedited and non-peer-reviewed stuff that is so easily posted. My impression is that very few Parker people I know, and I know a lot of them, would think it a good idea to take apart their own gun(s). This was all hashed and rehashed in the nineteenth century and is even more true now than then.
Captain Bogardus wrote in 1874 that: "I could never see any use in a long theoretical or practical description of the principals and details of guns as they are made. All such knowledge is necessary to the maker, but of no practical use of all to the shooter.... Sportsmen may safely leave such matters to the gunmakers, who are nearly everywhere a very ingenious, painstaking, trustworthy class of men."
Going back to the 1840s, William Henry Herbert ("Frank Forester") also weighed in on the topic: "Few amateurs, even the best informed, are competent to describe, much less comprehend, the materials and mechanisms of a first rate gun, although they maybe perfectly capable of deciding the quality of the gun when manufactured."
The idea that anybody would look inside a Parker Gun and based on observations not buy a Parker shows an a profound grasp of the irrational. Most people I know have only the vaguest idea of the innards of their favoriate piece and cringe at the thought of having one opened up for cause. The suprising thing is how many of the old guns of all makers continue to provide faultless service. This doublegunshop site and others plus the various double gun organizations, publications and events are ample proof of the continuing success of double guns in general and the pecking order of the various guns valued in the markerplace. EDM
