Several years ago while traveling in Charlotte, NC, I met a gentlemen in a gunshop there and we struck up a conversation over the 20-bore DHE he had just purchased. To make a long story shorter, he eventually invited me to his home where I spent hours looking at his interesting "stuff'; a lot of which had been inherited from his grandfather. One of those inherited items was a high-conditioned BHE Parker 20-bore with two sets of factory 3" chambered 30" barrels (both with their own forearms). He said this gun was purchased new by his grandfather in the 1920's; and that one of the Parker salesmen had come to his home to close the sale and take the order (also on hand was a letter from the PGCA authenticating originality). I wonder how many 3" 20-bore 2-barrel set BHE's there are out there?
The same guy also had a 16-bore EE LeFever his grandfather had purchased new, with a later set of 20-bore non-ejector barrels (with forearm) factory fitted and numbered to the gun (the only such LeFever two guage set I've seen). The owner also had the original wooden break-down box (with original brown paper wrappings still inside) in which the gun was shipped from the factory and delivered by rail; but the really interesting thing about that gun concerned the later fitted barrels. For some reason his grandfather had sent the gun to Parker with a request that they fit a set of new barrels to the gun. The owner produced an old Parker letter showing that Parker had returned the gun thanking his grandfather for the request, explaining that they could certainly do the work; but, since they did not have tooling on hand to fabricate a set of Lefever barrels, thought the cost of adding such tooling might make the cost of his request prohibitive. Parker then suggested that he send the gun with his request to LeFever, and gave him the address; which he did and ultimately recieved the second set of barrels. I can't say for sure, but suspect the gun was set to Ithaca on that second trip; where a set of barrels was fitted from what remained from their Lefever inventroy, although no documentation remains for an accurate determination. At any rate, a most unusual, neat, and desireable LeFever small bore.
