doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Spanish Gun Market. What is your input?

Fellows, as you know I have been selling Spanish guns for many years, importing direct from the makers. The Spanish makers want to know why they are not selling as many guns in the USA as several years before. The US market was at one time their biggest. Not now. So give me your input so I can forward your concerns and ideas back to them. Helping with this will help them understand what going on in the US to better address concerns about their products and distribution in the US

Thanks a bunch

John Boyd
Quality Arms
Houston, TX

Priced themselves out of a market?...Geo

I agree with George and you loose so much when you sell them. Bobby

Same as most mid priced guns in my opinion, the market is dead. I sold a cheap but very shootable British SxS recently to a retired gentleman. We talked over this very thing. He mentioned that he and his friends at one time could spend 5-6K on a gun and it was not a big deal. No more. He was shopping sub-1000$ and he said his friends now might go up to 2K, but they are not buying higher priced guns as the amount of disposable income available to them has decreased. I hear the same thing from many blue collar/middle class guys. The guys with the money, well that is a different story. I personally do not feel we have recovered from the economic down turn of 2008 and that is why the gun market, including Spanish guns, is still quite stagnate.

I agree with George and you also have to understand that the number of bird hunters are declining particularly in areas that have had a steep decline in the Pheasant population.. I also think in general people take better care of their guns today and,as we all know, they will remain useable for a long time if properly maintained.
Additionally many younger shotgun buyers want something like a Benelli.
Anyway my take on it.
I acquired this AYA Gr. 2 Two barrel set at an estate sale some time ago. Just for the heck of it I contacted AYA, gave them the specs and asked for a current quote last year.
The quote came back at right around $14,000 and this didn't include taxes or shipping!


Jim

after ww2, spanish gun makers made guns of vastly different quality. those of low quality have ruined the reputation of other spanish made guns. aya/diarm is the clasic example.

plus, quality competition from gun makers in turkey and japan make it tough to compete in today's shrinking double gun market.

Their markets here were and are mostly middle-class folks. Unfortunately, those are the people most affected by this present economy of ever-increasing costs for staples (food, gas, & medicine) but limited opportunities for new jobs or pay increases in their present positions (assuming they still have jobs). Also, a lot of the double-gun crowd is either nearing or in retirement. When discretionary spending (and this is all about "discretionary") is limited by unstable economic conditions, these types of "toys" are the first thing to go by the wayside. That has been the downfall of many specialty-market manufacturers over the last hundred years or so. Look at Parker, or LC Smith, or even Duisenberg, Cord or Auburn. All had great products, but couldn't compete for the ever-shrinking market. Not much good news in that for them at the moment, and little good-news on the horizon, it seems.

I was absolutely ready cash in hand to buy an AyA 4/53 but when I saw that the resale of a 4k gun was 2500-2800 dollars tops after just opening the box I decided a used gun was good enough for me.

I got a 4 year old 4/53 that is hard to tell has been fired for $2700 "out the door." I worry that I shouldn't have just bought an Uggie and saved another 1000 bucks?

CHAZ

As Steve said, there has been very little upturn in the economy. If a person has the money to spend on a nice side by side will pick whatever they want. The question being are the upper end Spanish guns now worth the 10% to 15% increase in price we've seen over the last year. The middle class guy looking for his once in a lifetime special gun will be more likely to buy used. Our interest in side by sides put us in a niche so small that it rarely is part of the statistics for yearly shotgun sales. If we look at the past we find Winchester might not have made a profit, and if I remember correctly there were more 00 and field grade LC Smiths sold than all the Parker's combined. If anyone has an answer please share as the answer is important to me also. Mark

Many of the ads that I see in sporting magazines are those that show camo automatics. Most of my hunting buddies shoot SxS's and our kids shoot automatics.
It could be $ as mentioned above, but I think the "cool" factor is alive and well and automatics are now cool.