doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Parker A-! Special "Sold Again?"" Wow!!

My take on it is that Wilber Parker had this returned A1-Special to sell and the only real link to the Czar is his letter to the eventual purchaser where he said they made it for the Czar, but he was also trying to sell the Gentleman a 20-gauge A1-Special for his wife in that letter!

The "Czar's" Parker has no inscription and no special embellishment. The Marlin pump gun made a few years earlier for Nikki II and covered in many of the 1913-vintage sporting magazines had a gold inlaid Russian Bear rampant protecting her cubs on one side, the Romanoff's double-headed Eagle crest on the other side also in gold, and the Czar's personal crest N II in platinum on top.

If the rumors are half true, Nash Buckingham's original Bo Whoop has changed hands for more!

Recent research shows that the Czar's Parker was consigned (by Parker at a $500.00 price) to a famous gun emporium between the time it was returned to Parker Brothers, by Orren Dickey as I recall, and ultimately sold to its long time owner. Existing Parker correspondence would suggest that the gun was finally sold by Parker Brothers, but it is also possible that the consignee brokered the deal for Parker Brothers. The "recent research" is now in the hands of PGCA, so, if the new owner requests a PGCA letter of provenance, he should be appraised of this new research.

Today at Taco Bell, I ordered an extra Burrito Supreme. I intended to give it to Bo Diddley but he up and died before I could present it to him. Does anyone know what this burrito is worth, seeings as how it was destined for greatness?

The best Parker ever made was a coffee mill - a wooden box with a pull out-tray and a grinder handle on top. Parker was a hardware merchant who added shotguns to his line of products. Just reliable guns based on the work of real gunmakers. Now, if you're interested in a real gunmaker, there's Uncle Dan Lefever! As for the Czar's Parker, I'd be very surprised if the Czar ever heard of it. Kind of like the Bo Diddley Burrito Supreme!

Hmmm.... a real gunmaker woulda know better than to change his design every 3 years. And he woulda realized a real gunmaker has to stay solvent in order to make more guns!

GregSY

If you do not think of Uncle Dan as a real gunmaker then that sentiment shows how little you have learned so far and how much more you have to learn. JOhn Browning was another person who kept changing his designs left and right as the same time as Lefever was doing the same. Do not judge a man by the bottom line alone. History is written most often not by those who lived it, but by those who came later many of whom have an axe to grind or a viewpoint to support.

Lefever invented a double which could be adjusted for wear and has been able to last over 100 years. I shoot one that is 117 years old and must have shot a boat load of shells over the years. Still works perfectly every time I pull the trigger. In the past four years I have put just under 15,000 shells in that guns and it is still tight as the day I got it. Try that with a Remington 11/87 or Beretta slam-a-matic. I have, they wear much faster that this old double.

All of his partners combined did not contribute 10% of the improvements to the advancement of guns or doubles in the US. Most were people looking for a large return on investment and as anyone in the gun making business can tell you that is almost never the case. Slow and steady if you are lucky.

Parker made more money on coffee grinders, vices and hardware good that they made and sold than they ever made on guns. Fox might have made more on fishing reels than guns. Just about every gun maker in the US has been sold or taken over in my lifetime. And by then we were down to just a few. In the 1880-1900 time frame there were dozens, maybe more. Many made more profit on bike parts than guns. Almost all of them failed and were sold repeatedly.

How many gun makers survive a fire that destroys their entire factory with tools, wood and all gun parts lost? How many gun makers made it through the multiple boom and bust cycles of the late 1800's. Bank failures were common, runs on markets common, financial panics made any business a very risky thing. JP Morgan became the first Fed banker because he stopped a financial panic that many now understand he started. Times were vastly different and our viewpoints of right or wrong, smart or silly do not hold much weight.

Well...I have multiple Parkers that are over 100 years old and they haven't worn out yet so I don't think wear is an issue. One is over 120 years old in fact and it still works.

All gun makers have been in trouble at one time or another - but Lefever was shaky during the heyday of gunmaking. That would be like an oil company in today's world having trouble making ends meet. Being a gunmaker means being a businessman as well, sadly enough. His offering unto the market lacked stability, aesthetics, continuity, and an effective sales plan.

I don't care if Parker made most of their money on toothpicks and flavored condoms. What they did was turn out the finest American shotgun ever made. Time has proven that. If Uncle Dan was so great a gunmaker, why did a coffee grinder gun beat him out then and now?

Hype, ol'farts and the pristine chase!
We're flooded with thousands of crapped-out Parkers, so it's the needle in the haystack game.

Kinda like that, Lowell. Make a good novelette. Hipe Olfarts and the Pristine Chase. Hmm.

jack

Even though it wasn't entirely under Daniel Lefever's leadership, the various reincarnations of his businesses spanned quite an acceptable period of time compared to some other respected marques, admittedly some still in business. Examples would include A.H.Fox, Skeuse, Lamboy, Galazan, Perazzi, Famars. Lefever's personal failure as a businessman doesn't take much away from the guns or his reputation as a gunmaker. Is John Olin considered a failure because the Model 21 didn't add to his company's bottom line and his company ultimately ended up in someone else's hands?