American & British 410 Shotguns. Ronald Gabriel
and the rare pure collector. Such a collector was Leon Kelly who had at one time over 30 Parker 410 shotguns, many upgraded models by the Robert Runge and Larry DelGrego cottage industry [16]. Shooting small-winged game with a 410 became sporting and challenging. Simultaneously, the 410 collector began to have an impact upon and, at times, to dominate the gun-collecting fraternity, by setting new market trends aesthetically and economically. By the 1970s, the 410 collector fancied himself among the elite.
Early 410 collectors such as Otis Odom of Georgia, William Jaqua of Ohio, Leon Kelly of Alabama, and Alan Phillips of California, set the agenda. These men were of such high repute and credibility that their knowledgeable opinions informed the next generation of collectors. Their dicta often assumed near biblical importance to those they mentored.
The press and professional shotgun writers in the 1980s began to catch up with what the shooter and collector had known for several decades. Don Zutz, now deceased, was one of America’s greatest modern shotgun writers. He waxed deliriously when he described the 410 as the “epitome of line, proportion, grace, elegance, fit, balance, and finish.” He called it the “gun-maker’s toughest challenge and his greatest pride” [17]. In fact, Harry Lawrence, Great Britain’s great gunmaker of the middle half of the 20th century, built Purdey’s first hammerless bar-action sidelock 410 in 1927 and, together with his building three miniature working guns for King George V, called it “my greatest gunmaking feat” [18].
Zutz, the man with the big-bore name and a technical mastery of the American shotgun scene, continued poetically on behalf of the 410 in which smallness becomes appealing, “... something apart from the gross, the bulky, and the ordinary ... a collector’s dream, an investor’s hedge and a hunter’s joy.” His recent death leaves a large void in popular shotgun writing. He wrote about shotguns with such joy that he filled his readers with a great emotional satisfaction.
There are two reasons why the collectable 410 began to sell at a premium. First, is its rarity. The era when the quality double 410 was being built favored the big bore. In part, this was because of the attitude of an earlier generation of gun writers and in part because it remained for many a hunter a time of hunting out of necessity and quality double 410s were an unnecessary luxury. Furthermore, the 1930s was not an extravagant time. Just ask the many still-living sons and daughters of agricultural produce pickers of the California Imperial and Central valleys who lived in tents in the blistering hot summers. Many of them supplemented the meager family table with small game shot with their single-shot, single-barrel 410.
In America, the double 410 did not make its appearance at Parker, Ithaca, and L.C. Smith until the mid to late 1920s. This was soon followed by the economic straits of the 1930s in which few could indulge in an expensive small-bore shotgun. By the early 1950s, the great American double shotguns, with the exception of Olin-Winchester’s Model 21, had essentially ceased production.
A second reason the collectable 410 sells at a premium is that the aesthetic aspects of this bore are most compelling. As Zutz continued in his own hyperbolic prose, “gun fanciers cherish the small bores.” It is “a matter of profile, trimness, and size.” The “artistry of gunsmithing, assemblers and finishers and engravers” is “truly electric”—all on behalf of the 410.
Personalities and Influences
One of the most important 410 collectors in the world has been William Jaqua, the fabled shotgun dealer from Ohio. At one time, he had, without question, the finest 410 collection in the world, encompassing American, English, and European shotguns. This included perhaps the greatest high-grade original Parker 410 that can be confirmed with factory records, a CHE, number 241429. It features a ventilated rib, a single trigger, and a beavertail forend (see Parker chapter). As the dean of American shotgun dealers, Jaqua represented the best in knowledge and honesty and their application to the treacherous field of shotgun collecting.
Alan Phillips, president of the Gray Truck Company turned gentleman gun dealer, had a deep and varied collection of shotguns including unique Parker and Model 21 410s. He also shares Jaqua’s value system. Kelly, at one time, had the major collection of Parker 410s, several of which were upgrades that he had commissioned by Runge and DelGrego (see Parker chapter). Other Parker 410 collectors include the remarkable Otis and Ruby Odom who became, by the 1970s, the pre-eminent Parker collectors with a subspecialty in the 410 bore. This uniquely traditional and unsurpassingly hospitable couple acquired a singular expertise in all phases of the Parker, especially the 410.
A number of dealers and gun writers highlighted the desirability of 410 collecting, especially the Parker. These include writers Peter Johnson and Larry Baer and the prolific dealer and universally known Herschel Chadick. In recent times, Chadick has managed to raise shotgun dealing to a near religious experience. Current shotgun dealers, known for their reliability and large fund of knowledge of the 410, include Michael Weatherby and Don Criswell of California, William Larkin Moore of Arizona, and Marshall Field of New York.
Two articles appearing in Arms Gazette gave specific impetus to the world of 410 collecting in the 1970s. Alan Phillips’ article on the Model 21 Winchester 410 was well researched and succinctly written. It has stood the test of time now that complete factory data have surfaced.
A second article on the Parker 410 further stimulated popular interest in this gauge as an important objective for the serious shotgun collector. However, it is a minefield of data requiring considerable critical scrutiny, particularly with respect to the guns pictured and identified as original high-grade 410 Parkers. At one time, to this writer’s knowledge, not a single factory-documented original Parker 410 bore on a triple 0 frame above a CHE grade had surfaced publicly to allow for a consensus and/or record authentication. In fact, Charles Parker, a grandson of the founder who oversaw the sale to Remington in 1937, has stated that Parker never made a 410 that was originally in a grade above CHE [19]. This, at times acrimonious debate, has had some closure now that the Remington-Parker records have been fully collated (see Parker chapter).
These important collectors, dealers, and writers, and those that followed, have developed a love affair with the 410 because of the gun’s inherent quality, rarity, and beauty. Above all other gauges, the 410 has been most vulnerable to embellishment, alteration, re-finishing, and upgrading. The Parker and the Model 21 Winchester have been most subject to this peculiar but understandable post-World War II development in the aesthetics of shotgunning. Fortunately, Winchester kept very detailed records of the Model 21, and it is possible to identify virtually every 410 that has been altered, upgraded, or otherwise changed from the original. In the case of the Parker, public access to the historical records was denied for decades. Authentication of specimens relied upon the word of experienced dealers and collectors and whatever records that fraternity could develop. Virtually every other manufacturer of the 410 in this century has kept excellent and available records. Their guns are relatively impervious to the machinations of those engaging in the craft of shotgun “upgrading” for either aesthetic, impulsive, and/or economic exploitation (see Parker chapter).
The Great American side-by-side double 410 ceased to exist when the various companies liquidated. Even the Model 21, the last fine side-by-side double 410 introduced in America and the last to be discontinued, is no longer made by Winchester. In fact, Winchester discontinued the Model 21 410 in the 1960s, except for very special circumstances (see Model 21 chapter). They sold the rights of the Model 21 in the early 1980s to the U.S. Repeating Arms Company who began to advertise the 410 and 28-bore Model 21 in the middle 1980s. This appears to have been a short-lived effort for as of 1992, they were no longer offering these gauges.
Recently, however, this version of the Model 21 410 bore has resurfaced on the commercial market through the efforts of Tony Galazan and his Connecticut Shotgun Company. Galazan, who is now America’s premier gunmaker, has resurrected Fox and the Winchester Model 21 and has patented a unique over and under, all available in the 410 bore.
The Browning over/under double