Is this the Parker Hale factory ?

No it would appear to have been Alfred J Parkers. The best stuff was gone over by vultures from the gun trade and a lot really took the poor old chap selling the stuff for Parkers for a ride as I hear it.

As they were winding down I brought a few bits for Enfields from them by post. Needed another bit for a project and couln't get through. made enquiries in the trade and it seems the vultures had descended and stripped the place.
 
You maybe don't hear right! Apparently when Edna Parker died a relative took over the ownership but with Richard (who had been hired by Miss Parker) still actually "front of house" as it were.

He was not paid a huge amount but because he got an allowance looking after HIS elderly relative could manage on it. However the Government changed the allowance rules!

So he could no longer "afford" to work there on these "part-time" wages as he would lose his allowance. Or somesuch.

Anyway if they wanted him to stay they would have to have paid him more. And did not want to.

The relative then, I heard, having got Parker's for nothing didn't actually care about keeping it and so any price, in quick time, was a good price.

So I understand it mostly went for scrap value.

Now all that is secondhand so it may be a load of BS!
 
I can always remember that yapping little poodle whenever you went there! It even used to come down to Bisley with her!

What Miss Parker never did ever really understand was by the 1980s that people were shooting the SMLE and the No4 at Bisley in "Classic Rifle" competitions but didn't want her target sights any longer.

She never could "get" that people were actually buying SMLE and No4 rifles and taking her target sights (or P-H's) OFF and putting back the original military pattern sights.

She always would ask "Why aren't they buying my sights?" and it was hard for the listener to explain that this new group of shooters behind this 1980s renaissance of the SMLE and No4 actually DID NOT want target sights but military sights!

You used to see boxes of them on the stands at arms fairs and not one PH5 or 4/47 for never more than £10 and still hard or impossible to find any buyer at all at that!
 
:rofl: Oh how I wish I have discovered these less than £10 sights. When I was looking for one to fit to the No4T they were going for at least £60 well worn. I eventually found a new TZ47 in box but hat did cost me £65 and a drink to get it. I sold it for a bit more than that a few years ago as hte NoT had long gone. I prefer No1's to shoot they feel better.

The Vultures are well known in the classic trade an some of them would cut their mothers throat to get a deal. I have met and dealt with a few over the eyars and Oh they get quite shirty when caught out at a racket as happened over the sale of a Mannlicher model 1892 sporting rifle. he thought he could get oen from another dealer and pass it off to me at treble the price. Sadly for him as I had been looking for a good one for a while I had already examined and passed over this rifle. Luckily a friend spied one ona rack at a Bisley show and when we examained it not only was it a sleeper it was a Rigby to boot and over £150 cheaper. You should have seen the rip off artist splutter. I offered him the chance to compete on price but he could nto bring himself to make a modest profit so i ahd to tell him who really owned his rifle. You should have seen his eyes bug out when caught.

I know a couple who do go the AJP to buy some parts sadly they wer enot the first and they described how soem previous "dealer" had just ripped open drawers and tipped the contents on the floor to pick through them then just left what they didn't want where it lay.

I only ever dealt with them by phone when re-building the No4T.
 
I paid £250 for my 4(T) and that included the chest, the sling, the correct 'scope (AND ALL NUMBERED TO THE GUN) plus even the handkerchief in the 'scope tin!

Makes you weep now! Even had, later, an all correct 3(T) that I paid only about £600 for!
 
I paid £250 for my 4(T) and that included the chest, the sling, the correct 'scope (AND ALL NUMBERED TO THE GUN) plus even the handkerchief in the 'scope tin!

Makes you weep now! Even had, later, an all correct 3(T) that I paid only about £600 for!
\
That hurt! I paid $800 for my 4T fifteen years ago!:lol: I paid only $250 for my No1 MkVI about a decade back. My best deal was an LSA, No 1, MkI dated 1914 that I bought out of a trunk ('bonnet' for you who don't speak redneck) at a gunshow for $60US as the fellow was unloading some guns to bring in to sell. It is absolutely excellent; correct and a wonderful shooter. I have just this year finished restoring a Sparkbrook 1906 No1 Mk1 that I think I bought during JAYB's last visit. It cost me $90 US but I've put in a few hundred more in parts. Still have yet to shoot it but I'll get around to it. I'm with you, Kev. I like shooting the No1's the best.

The saddest guns I've seen? A pair of No 1 Mk V rifles that some idiot has "sporterized" by sawing off, and scrapping, about 8" of wood from the foreend and all of the top wood. The owner had paid $400 each on the assurance that replacement wood was "common as clay", I believe he said. He never did find wood that I know of.:(~Muir
 
I have never regretted selling a gun (even some years later seeing the price compared to what they has become) but I've regretted not buying quite a few! That's the truth! Because often you NEVER get that chance again.

Hood = Bonnet and Trunk = Boot but I'm sure you were just testing us "Yurrup Peons"! :D
 
Boot. I knew I'd get that wrong. Nope! Uropeons?? I'd never refer to y'all as Uropeons.

I quit selling guns because you never get the opportunity to buy them back. I give away a few every once in a while, but the collectible stuff stays put.~Muir
 
Collectables................... saw a almost new looking condition 03 Springfield made at Rock Island in 1918 at the show. Nearly fainted when I saw the price £1250 :eek:. Didn't look any further at the bore etc.
 
When I was last at the gun shop I once worked at (a marvelous place with very high grade collectibles) I saw a pair of Krag Jorgensen rifles chambered at the Springfield Armory in 30-03!! And they fed! These were prototype trials rifles to see if a conversion from 30-40 was practical. The was NO price on these and indeed, they were on pending sale when I handled them, but mercy! I can image that they were really expensive. Excellent piece of history! Whew! ~Muir
 
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