There are actually a few collectors of older Spanish handguns. I know one. As stated, some show very good workmanship, others don't. There was a Federal court decision in the early 1920s which barred the (legal) importation of some of the Spanish revolvers on the grounds that they constituted unfair competition to U. S. manufacturers as they were clearly fairly exact copies of S&W and Colt revolvers which sold at a far lower price than the US products. Sort of like banning fake Rolex watches from importation. But neither ban worked very well (they never do), and some Spanish revolvers continued to find their way here until the Spanish Civil War of the later 1930s stopped them at the source.
More recently, Astra and Llama revolvers were imported into the USA during the 1960s-1980s period, and all of those were fairly well made. I don't think there are any of the Spanish handgun manufacturers still in business today, at least none exporting handguns to the USA.
Last edited by DWalt; 08-12-2017 at 03:56 PM.
|