Eduardo María Schilling Monfort

Eduardo Maria Schilling Monfort (14 October 1852 – 13 November 1925) was a German gunsmith and businessman. He became a weapons manufacturer when he founded a factory of such in Eibar in 1893, and then in Barcelona in 1896, becoming a distinguished representative of the Barcelona economy. His best well-known product was the Jabalí brand shotguns, which had no rival in Spain and competed with the best English brands.

Early life and education Eduardo Schilling was born on 14 October 1852 in the Waldshut district, Grand Duchy of Baden, as the son of a Jewish family who had converted to Catholicism, formed by his parents Johann Nepomuck Schilling and Maria Anna Montfort (1833–1871), and two brothers, Anna Maria and Karl Frederik. as well as hunting equipment and camping products, but the store was also the warehouse of the , so it soon developed an immense stock of shotguns, revolvers, and cartridges, When the war ended in 1876, he moved to Sant Martí de Provençals in Barcelona, where Schilling, who demonstrated a vigorous business character throughout his life, proposed to Don Luís something more serious than a mere supplier-client business relationship, in the sense of starting something together. Their eldest surviving son Eduardo abandoned his industrial engineering career before 1900 to join his father's company.

Manufacturing (Eibar)

Unlike the rest of Spain, Schilling's weapons were taken from high-end Belgian and English models, perhaps from Auguste Lebeau and Westley Richards, which distinguished his company from the other weapons manufacturers of that time. Among these workers who accompanied him, there were Miguel Aguirre and Nicolás Aranzábal, two young gunsmiths from Eibar who had decided to perfect their skills under the guidance of Schilling, who apparently taught them well, as they went on to create the in 1915, better known as AYA shotguns. Furthermore, there was also the master gunsmith and future business partner Pedro Paguaga, which he had met in the gunsmith centers in 1894. Such was his size as a manufacturer and distributor of handguns that in 1911, a group of conspirators negotiated with one of his factories in Barcelona for the supply of 500 Mauser and Winchester weapons, an event that was mentioned by Minister José Relvas in a letter to the Spanish Ministry of State on 11 December.

Advertising technique is several dozen years ahead of its time and is based on multiple techniques, such as the massive advertisement of the product in short clichés and advertising their quincallería products in elaborate clichés with details that were considered luxury to attract attention.

Sporting career At some point, Schilling was a member of the Hiking Club of Catalonia, in which some of his children also took part.

On 8 December 1899, his 16-year-old son started for FC Barcelona in their first-ever match, This is highly unlikely due to his advanced age of 47, which would make him the oldest-ever first-team player in the history of Barcelona, albeit not in an official match.

In 1912, Schilling introduced a patent on elastic cords for gymnastic exercises.

Death Schilling died in Barcelona on 13 November 1925, at the age of 73. He remained active in his later years, working until just months before his death since in 1925, he registered a patent on a plate throwing device.

Legacy After he died, Eduardo Jr. took over his companies, but the many social upheavals during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera led to the sale of the company in 1929. Before its definitive sale (1930) to the company Armas y Accesorios de Tiro y Caza, Eduardo Schilling became Schilling Sociedad Anónima and reactivated the production of shotguns despite already being aware of their impending stock liquidation, which happened a few months later.