For those who fish, some may find themselves in a shop and seeing the name Abu Garcia.
Funny thing is that when I first saw the name, I thought it was an Indian or Mexican manufacturer of fishing poles, but I found the name quite interesting.
But Abu Garcia history is from Sweden and America.
For the “Abu”, that is derived from AB Urfabriken, a watch company that was founded in 1921. But Gote Borgstrom, a fishing enthusiast, redirected the focus of the company to focus on fishing reels during World War II and ABU Svangsta was born.
For the “Garcia” name, this was derived from American outdoor sports distributing and manufacturing company, Garcia Corporation. Who happened to be the largest fishing tackle company for its time and were known as Charles Garcia & Company, New York City.
During the 1950’s, Garcia Corporation imported and marketed ABU Svangsta’s reels including the popular “Ambassadeur” reels and in 1980, ABU Svangsta acquired the Garcia Tackle Company and the company changed their name to ABU Garcia.
Currently, the company is owned by Pure Fishing (which other fishing companies such as ABU Garcia, All Star, Berkley, Chub, Fenwick, Greys, Hardy, Hodgman, Johnson, JRC, Mitchell, Penn, Pflueger, Plano Molding, Sebile, Shakespeare, SpiderWire, Stren, and Ugly Stikwhich are under) is now owned by American private equity firm, Sycamore Partners (the company which owns “Staples”, “Hot Topic”, “Walgreens”, to name a few).
But for a lot of father and sons, many generations of children used or inherited their father or grandfather’s Abu Garcia rod and reels. For me, it’s no different as I have my father’s Abu Garcia APPEXX KS70MH, an old vintage graphite fishing rod that was marketed in the ’80s through the early ’90s. The rod is 7 feet and used for medium-heavy action and has a two piece graphite spinning rod rated for 12-25 lb line and 1-3 oz bait.
But for collectors, its the classic rods and reels that featured the Swedish royal coat of arms.
