. Cat.logo_AYA(1-15).fh8 - AYA, Aguirre y Aranzabal

were the trade’s major customers. In that Spanish gunshop, the King brothers saw an
opportunity, and when they returned home they called on the Spanish chamber of
commerce in London.
A short while later, armed with a list of gunmaking companies in the Basque Country,
Andrew and Peter King returned to Spain and began making calls. They visited a number
of gunmakers, and in all but one instance, they found a “take it or leave it” attitude: Here’s
what we make. How many do you want? The lone exception was AYA.
AYA not only had the largest factory in Eibar, but its managing director, Agustín Aranzabal,
was warm, welcoming, and open to any suggestion the King brothers might have about
how the company could crack the market in the United Kingdom. The British market
was then (and still is) the toughest in the world. Every gun sold there, regardless of price,
is compared with guns from Purdey and Holland & Holland. No Spanish company had
ever made inroads. This was a chance to do so.
– 11 –
Spanish Treasure
The King brothers agreed to help AYA produce an “English range” of guns specifically
for the UK market. In that meeting was born a partnership that helped transform the
Spanish fine-gun business, and catapulted AYA from being a regional company known
mostly in Spain, into one of the great names in shotguns around the world.
Until 1958, AYA’s line of shotguns consisted of a wide range of models, from the most
basic single-shot up to a rather exotic over-and-under, the Model Nº 37, patterned on
the famous German Merkel. There were both sidelock and boxlock doubles, and the
Model 53B, with sideclips and a heavy frame, was widely admired by live-pigeon
competitors. The American writer, Colonel Charles Askins, who served as U.S. military
attaché in Madrid in the early 1950s, spent a good deal of time in Eibar studying the
Spanish armaments industry. He and Agustín Aranzabal were good friends, Askins owned
several of their guns, and wrote glowingly about the Model Nº 37, which he called “the
best over/under made in Europe.”
In overall styling, however, the AYA guns owed more to continental European than to
English taste. If AYA was to make an impact in London, it would have to produce guns
with the severe, classic elegance of the London gunmakers.
The King brothers returned to Spain with two guns for AYA to use as patterns. The
sidelock was a Holland & Holland. The boxlock was a Westley Richards with the standard
Anson & Deeley action. These two guns provided the basis for four famous models —
the Nº 1, the Nº 2, the Nº 4, and the Nº 4 de Luxe. These became the heart of the AYA
line.
At home in England, the Kings established Anglo Spanish Imports (ASI) to distribute the
AYA guns. They hired English craftsmen and sent them to Spain to teach English techniques
to the AYA gunmakers. These included riblaying, best blacking, and stock finishing.