Thread: English & Spanish side by sides

thanks good advice!

last night i purchased two Spanish made guns , both with the label Sabel. Gunmark in the UK back in the 70s I believe decided to make an English styled at a fraction of the cost of an actual English one and went to Spain to do so .
Very interesting bunch they used to build these guns and all but one are considered the Best Gun Makers in Spain and around the world"there are bar one being Gorsable .

Aguirre y Aranzabal (AyA), Arrieta y Cia, Pedro Arrizabalaga, Armas Garbi, and Grulla Armas , these 5 names represent the best of the Spanish builders which I will alter to Basque builder as they are only called Spanish having been conquered for the first time in known history in the Franco Spanish revolution .

I happened to live there in the region for 3 season working on the coast in the surfing industry .Of these famous gun maker names Gunmark had three of them build guns for them .

Now I had seen a Sabel on trade me some time back and I did not know its worth and had never heard of it before but it stuck in my mind as it was a very attractive looking gun with some nice engraving for the price but sadly was a right hander .
On my searching for UK guns I encountered alot of them again and liked what I saw for the price point -not being a man of wealth one must be selective in ones purchases !
What really got me going though was starting to read the history of the gun and its makers . Arrieta y Cia, Pedro Arrizabalaga, Armas Garbi, three of the real biggies all made models and they all are guns of great value in that they are way less expensive for the English equal -so I purchased 2 , an Arrieta and a Garbi . Im afraid the images are not the best and one the images were not down loadable from the site but Ia will post once they arrive . I have pulled a little info from around other sites about these guns if anyone is interested in the history of this brand .The guns I have are Royale's

The Sabel range of sidelocks were made for Gunmark by Arrietta, Garbi and Gorosabel. I have an advert from Sporting Gun magazine (UK) December 1979 in front of me. The Black Sabel D/L with 27 inch barrels is shown as being made by Garbi while the Sabel 27 and Sabel 25 are shown as built by Arrietta (that's how it is spelt in 1979) and are quote "The most popular sidelocks in our middle price bracket."
Price for all three models in 1979 was GBP 570. Gough Thomas was very favourably impressed with the overall quality of the Sabel sidelocks. I have owned a Sabel 25 made by Arrietta which was marked Sabel 25 which was a very nice gun. In May whilst in England I bought a Gold Sabel, made by Garbi 27 inch barrels 1/4 and 1/2 choke easy opener modelled on the H&H Royal. In 1989 the Gold Sabel retailed (exc. tax) for GBP 3400 at which time an AYA model 1 sold in the UK for GBP 2500. Other models were the Imperial (Arrietta) Royal (Garbi) similar to the Gold but without the easy opener, Crown (Arrietta) and Silver Sabel (Gorosabel). By 1989 there was also a Gunmark Regale 27" which retailed for GBP 5400 I don't know who the maker was.