Info on Union Armera S.L. Eibar SxS?

[tpuig]

A buddy brought a very nice SxS by today. It was given to his father, and in turn to him about 30 years ago. Spanish made, lots of beautiful engraving, a very nice gun.
He doesn't want to sell it, but was wondering where he could get more info and a ballpark value for insurance.

From the look of the recoil pad and general style, I'm guessing it's a 50's or 60's gun made for and imported by a former dealer in the US. Single trigger with a barrel selector above it. Thumb safety on the top. Nice wood. It's in very good shape. Hasn't been shot for about 30 years (he's never shot it himself and dad is deceased)

It's marked "Union Armera S.L. Eiber (Made in Spain)" and "Dakin Gun Company, San Francisco U.S.A." on the barrels. Serial number is UA15xxx. 12ga.

Gunbroker has a similar gun, but not quite the same. (double triggers)

Anybody got one of these in the safe?

[Thefeeder]

...

A buddy brought a very nice SxS by today. It was given to his father, and in turn to him about 30 years ago. Spanish made, lots of beautiful engraving, a very nice gun.
He doesn't want to sell it, but was wondering where he could get more info and a ballpark value for insurance.

From the look of the recoil pad and general style, I'm guessing it's a 50's or 60's gun made for and imported by a former dealer in the US. Single trigger with a barrel selector above it. Thumb safety on the top. Nice wood. It's in very good shape. Hasn't been shot for about 30 years (he's never shot it himself and dad is deceased)

It's marked "Union Armera S.L. Eiber (Made in Spain)" and "Dakin Gun Company, San Francisco U.S.A." on the barrels. Serial number is UA15xxx. 12ga.

Gunbroker has a similar gun, but not quite the same. (double triggers)

Anybody got one of these in the safe?

If you take down the gun, you may find proof marks and a maker mark or name under the barrels. From the above info there is nothing I can find.

[tpuig]

Thanks. He took the gun home, so I can't view it. But there were a number of proof marks under the barrels, aside from the metric sizing for the gauge and chokes.

The maker, Armera, is now called Grulla. From the examples I've found, they seem to be a fairly regarded gun, as far as the Spanish guns go.
My first impression was that it's custom run of guns for an SF shop that's long gone. I grew up in SF, and never heard of Dakin. But then again, I was likely in grammar school when the gun was made.
It should be interesting to find out more about this one.

[not-fishing]

I have a Grulla 217 RB and their shotguns are generally considered to be less expensive "Best" shotguns. It is my best shotgun by far. Much lighter and of higher quality than my son's LC Smith.

The sidelocks are generally priced higher than the boxlocks.

But you have to be careful. Spain had quality control problems during the 60's thru 90's that depending on the manufacturer. Even some more expensive manufacturers sent out shotguns with poorly made lock-works that the importer could not or would not fix.

With Union Armera, Orvis also did some importing of their product those imports seem to have better quality control maybe because Orvis backs up their guns.

[tpuig]

Cool, great info. I didn't see a model number on it, but might just have missed it. I'll have to take a closer look and detail all the numbers and markings, as well as their locations. My gut feeling is that this is a $2-3000 shotgun, but you never know.