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ABU Worldwide Advertizing

Links to a new section of advertizing pages (comprising USA, Australia, Asia,  Europe, Africa, South America ) Please advise if you have access to ads from other locations.

Although  A.B.Urfabriken began as a watch making firm in Sweden so long ago, the build quality of  its fishing equipment saw it sold right around the world!

I have amassed a large number of advertizements (such as these below) linked elsewhere on this site but my favourites have to be the ABU Garcia USA  advertizements (see Text links above) which are so interesting , so attractive, even a non fisherman would stop to read the details and be encouraged to purchase based on the details provided.

Naturally, as throughout this website, I asked my friend Len Borgstrom, calling upon him for 1st person, accurate recollection of facts. In response to my probing questions he always happily responds to share insights that are not necessarily document elsewhere.

"South Africa was one of our first export countries outside Scandinavia. Robert Winquist was the export manager for the Swedish company Husqvarna. In those days Husqvarna made hunting guns. He gave us the names of their agents in several countries. South Africa was one of these. The name of the Husqvarna agent there was Cyril Caro & Co. The founder, Cyril Caro, visited the Husqvarna factory in Sweden and Mr. Winquist took Mr. Caro to the Morrum river to fish for salmon. This was in the early 1950s. A few years later when Cyril’s son, Tony, had taken over the leadership of the company, he came to Sweden and we became very good personal friends. So much so, that when Annika and I got married he came all the way to Sweden for our wedding.

I think it must have been in the early 1960s when my father and I went to Leningrad for an exhibition, where we had a rather nice booth showing our fishing tackle. At that time it was still not possible to do any regular export of fishing tackle to Russia. All sales were based on us buying something from them in return. I have many funny memories from that show.

As fishermen in Russia were very interested in buying everything we had on display, we tried to find a way to get permission to leave all of our show products there. Our communist translator took us to the head Customs Office in Leningrad to help us get permission to do that. We got there at 9 o’clock in the morning and the first thing the head of Customs did was to bring out large glasses of vodka. My father and I had to drink two large shots of vodka together with him before we even started to negotiate. It ended up with us getting permission to leave everything.

Take care! Len "

Almost at the same time as I received this info re ABU's venture into Africa from Len, I received info to say that I would soon be receiving some supporting historical images also from Gary Moran in Africa.

"I don't know if you made contact with Cyril Caro Agencies?. Cyril Caro used to bring in Abu products from around the mid Seventies, Cyril has passed away and the company is currently being run by his son Simon.   They are no longer the Abu agents, Eezee Gold took this agency over around the mid Nineties, as it was under the umbrella of Pure Fishing. As of last week the agency has once again changed hands. If you can bear with me I will send you a number of Abu adverts dating back from around 1955. I have a collection of fishing magazines.

Kindest regards

Gary Moran

THE KINGFISHER

www.kingfisher.co.za "

It seems everyone wants to help! Look for a South African page now and some efforts to get the South American page rolling.

Initially in the 40's ,  it was local sales that were the main concern for the Swedish ABU company,  but avid fishermen around the globe, soon realized the quality of its products.

ABU management travelled overseas to promote its wares in  the USA initially (to Garcia and eventually Zebco) , and soon began advertizing  in USA, Europe, as well as Australia (even before they had stitched up a distributor here). If anyone knows of African and South American marketing regimes , please advise me.

ABU management not only sold its wares but established networks/relationships with 3rd party companies like Heddon, Burke, Pfleuger, Zangi etc who were soon in commercial relationship with ABU.

It is amazing that their quality equipment was sufficiently well thought of and bought behind the Iron Curtain counties as well as Scandinavian and English speaking countries. .

There are a multitude of reasons why this company was so successful, but I think high visibility in the market-place must surely be attributed to its English language translation of the Catalogs containing so much more than mere fishing equipment. Along with  the English versions, the catalogs appeared in a dozen or more languages and more detail is available here. Even an Austrian Fishing tackle company called Kossler produced it own catlogs, largely devoted to ABU.

ABU mainly were advertized in the print media, of monthly, yearly fishing magazines for many decades but eventually they hit a critical mass whereupon fans/collectors (like myself) use new age media to promote the glories of ABU. Even after (the original Borgstrom family ownership) the  huge number of company management transitions culminating in the present  Pure Fishing conglomerate ownership, we see Television advertizements, company websites, DVD production. I am unsure if radio was ever utilized to promote the product.

Please advise me if you have any further knowledge on this matter to share.