doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Spanish "Not so Best".

Geo Newbern, where did you find your source material for Viuda y Hijos de J.J. Sarasqueta and Victor Sarasqueta his brother, and when they started their respective companies? From their centennial catalog?

According to Wieland in Spanish Best, it was Victor Sarasqueta that founded his business in 1883, not 1904, and was considered the first dominant name gunmaking company in Spain. Victor Sarasqueta was appointed Gunmaker to the King in 1902; so 1904 doesn't add up for his business start up.

Anyway, according to Wieland it was when Alfonso XIII (b: 1886) became king that the Spanish gunmakers really began to flourish because of his enthusiasm for guns and shooting sports. But that was gunmaking for turn of the century Spainish consumption.

Tim

Get in line Adam, as we're still waiting for the omnipotent and all-knowing one to show us just one actual pic of an Arrieta 578 with 7-pin locks after making this ludicrous and unsubstantiated claim several months ago:
"I can only remark that there are as many Arrieta model 578 guns out there with seven pin locks as with five pin locks."

Tim, I bought a copy of the JJ catalog from Cornell. It is in Spanish, but I read um pocito; can't savvy a word of what they say though...Geo

That's Kyrie for you... the all-knowing will make a comment and assume that nobody will dare question him. If he gets called out, he'll just talk about something else and hope everyone forgets his incorrect and misleading comments. i.e the spanish did not copy the english, i.e. the spanish gun trade was flourishing in 1880s, etc.

01/05/15 03:59 PM

Tim,

I like Wieland�s �Spanish Best� and recommend it, with two caveats, to anyone with an interest in Spanish shotguns. One caveat is �Spanish Best� represents only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Spanish shotguns. For every maker Wieland mentions there are at least five more that he does not. The second caveat is �Spanish Best� contains many errors.

To illustrate this last point Wieland writes:

�The modern standard is the bar-action sidelock. I have never seen a back-action sidelock on a Spanish shotgun. �
Terry Wieland. Spanish Best (p. 112). Kindle Edition.

Wieland includes photos of two back action shotgun locks in �Spanish Best�, one on page 161and another on page 171.

The early years of Victor Sarasqueta�s involvement in the guns making business is another place Wieland falls down. While Victor Sarasqueta was involved in making shotguns in Spain as early as 1888 (having graduated from the gun making school in 1887), and was a joint owner of a gun making company as early as 1899, he did not open his own business until 1904.

Wieland has Victor Sarasqueta opening his own business years before he even graduated from gun making school.

Read and enjoy �Spanish Best�, but don�t take anything you may find in it as holy writ.

Geo. for your information. There is a picture of the Royal Warrant making Victor Sarasqueta gunmaker to the king, dated 1902, on pg. 29 of Wieland's Spanish Best.

I doubt if your info. about Victor Sarasqueta starting his company in 1904 is correct. I couldn't see a Royal Warrant being granted to an upstart or non existing company. I would think he would have been an established company in 1902.

Tim

Kyrie,

Where are you getting this information from? What are your source references?

Tim

Tim, I certainly do not claim any expertise regarding Spanish guns. I only own one, well two if you count the AYA single shot I'm planning on making into a turkey buster. The other is the JJ Sarasqueta I mentioned earlier and which piqued my interest in the the Spanish guns at all. I'd sworn off Spanish guns years ago when I bought a .410 out of a barrel of them for $75 from Art Mickler's sporting goods store in Macon GA back in the 1960's.

You seem to have considerable knowledge of the subject so my memory is likely wrong, as usual. I'm pretty sure Victor did not commence business in his own name until after 1900 though. Can't cite sources because I probably "got it off the internet"...Geo

I�ve been a collector of Spanish firearms for over fifty years. My sources are various and include, in no particular order, the national arms industrial registry (1830 � 1940), a host of lesser books on and by the gun makers of Eibar and Barcelona, period newspaper articles and trade periodicals, biographies of the individuals involved, and decades of correspondence with people in or retired from the firearm business in Spain.