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FeedRIP: Asprey Guns
On September 29 Asprey's gunroom manager, Tony Pritchard, was to hand over any remaining guns-the few that might not have been sold-as well as the company's firearms register and warrants to the London Metropolitan Police at Kensington Station. And then he himself would depart Asprey's.
Pritchard, 56, a Royal Navy and then oilfield diver and a former shooting-estate manager, had run Asprey's gun business almost since its inception. The company is now in the hands of the third owners since the founding family sold it to Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of the Sultan of Brunei, in the late 1990s, and this new proprietor wants nothing to do with firearms. [Editor's Note: The Asprey gunroom is not the William & Son gunroom written about in Sept/Oct.]
A total of 152 Asprey guns and double rifles and 22 magazine rifles have been made since 1990. Asprey-once described in these pages as London's "high-class tschotchke-maker for royalty and others of wealth and/or taste for two centuries"-got into the fine-gun trade in 1987 when it hired several Holland & Holland workers who left that maker when Chanel acquired it.
Both Presidents Bush as well as Generals Schwartzkopf and Franks own Asprey guns, as does the Prince of Wales, who refers to his pair of 28-bore Asprey grouse guns as his "peashooters." (HRH, perennially listed as one of the UK's top game shots, went to 28s after breaking his shoulder in a polo accident and rarely returns to the big bores.) In 2005 George H.W. Bush visited Asprey's main store on New Bond Street, and his first words reportedly were, "Now where's that gunroom of yours?" Asprey guns made their debut in America at the first Vintage Cup, at Addieville East Farm in Rhode Island in September 1996. (Asprey also made the silver trophies for The Vintage Cup for several years.)
Asprey guns rarely surface at auctions, but when they do, they exceed their reserves. In March London auctioneers Holt's gaveled down the "World Series" suite of six Pedersoli-engraved Asprey double rifles (.470 NE for Africa; .450 NE, Asia; .375 H&H Magnum, North America; .30-06, South America; 7x64mm, Europe; .303 British, Australia) for £380,000-just north of $700,000. Nick Holt told me, "We sold a pair of elephant tusks in the previous sale for £380,000, but the rifles were subject to [value-added tax] on the hammer price, which brought them up to £514,000 and did make them the highest-priced item we've ever sold."
William Evans Gun & Rifle Makers has said it will offer repair and maintenance of Asprey guns. From a letter signed by Duncan Cavenagh, managing director, and Ian Nisbet, gunroom manager: "Please take this as confirmation of [our] acceptance to take on all Asprey's existing customers and provide whatever service they may require concerning their shooting needs. This will include sales, repairs, servicing and storage."
For more information, contact William Evans, 01144-20-7493-0415; www.williamevans.com.
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