The Bannerman Catalog

[Snargfargle]

Want to outfit a junior league army? We've got you covered.

https://archive.org/details/francis-bannerman-military-goods-catalogue-1903/mode/2up?view=theater

Edited November 16 by Snargfargle

[Wolfswetpaws]

🙂👍

[Wolfswetpaws]

Found these links, while looking for more information about the Bannerman company history.

https://www.bannermancc.com/history/  

https://www.bannerman.com/about  

 

[Snargfargle]

5 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Bannerman

When I was a kid, I would have spent hours and hours looking through one of those catalogs.

Bannerman bought almost the entire 5000-unit stock of Rogers & Spencer Army revolvers, which were purchased during the Civil War but stockpiled and never used, for 25 cents each. He then made a decent profit by selling them for $3.85. Today, a good-quality original Rogers & Spencer can sell for $2800. Even a reproduction is $500. Although not used in the War, other than by officers who might purchase one for themselves on the civilian market, the Rogers and Spencer was arguably the best revolver to come out of the Civil War era. This is why they were kept stockpiled as a backup by the government for forty years.

[Wolfswetpaws]

2 minutes ago, Snargfargle said:

When I was a kid, I would have spent hours and hours looking through one of those catalogs.

Bannerman bought almost the entire 5000-unit stock of Rogers & Spencer Army revolvers, which were purchased during the Civil War but stockpiled and never used, for 25 cents each. He then made a decent profit by selling them for $3.85. Today, a good-quality original Rogers & Spencer can sell for $2800. Even a reproduction is $500. Although not used in the War, other than by officers who might purchase one for themselves on the civilian market, the Rogers and Spencer was arguably the best revolver to come out of the Civil War era. This is why they were kept stockpiled as a backup by the government for forty years.

👍

[Asym]

1 hour ago, Snargfargle said:

When I was a kid, I would have spent hours and hours looking through one of those catalogs.

Bannerman bought almost the entire 5000-unit stock of Rogers & Spencer Army revolvers, which were purchased during the Civil War but stockpiled and never used, for 25 cents each. He then made a decent profit by selling them for $3.85. Today, a good-quality original Rogers & Spencer can sell for $2800. Even a reproduction is $500. Although not used in the War, other than by officers who might purchase one for themselves on the civilian market, the Rogers and Spencer was arguably the best revolver to come out of the Civil War era. This is why they were kept stockpiled as a backup by the government for forty years.

In the early 1960's, several of my much older friends bought "cases" of un used Trapdoors and "other stuff" from several wars....  I own one of the 1884 Trapdoors from the win fall those older men created.  They still have the shipping boxes and several mint level rifles.....  Heck, one of my close, older friends bought a Spanish American 37mm Gatling gun and restored it.  I have posted pictures of that a while back.  

The vehicle restoration friends of mine have all sorts of surplus parts from there....  Bought, again, in the early 1960's....   A recently deceased collector used to display one of the Civ war shipping cases,  with several varieties of 100% mint rifles, at some of the collector gun shows nationally....   Another recently deceased friend I worked with,  had the largest collection of Winchester 22's (and, all of the stuff surrounding them) in the world...  He traveled all over the US and competed in Collector Display competitions at major gun and collector shows.... !  He had a Tractor Trailer to move that collection..... 

A different time back then.  

[Snargfargle]

2 hours ago, Asym said:

A different time back then.  

Back when I was a kid, old things were mostly just considered old not yet "antiques." In those days, you could still find some really good firearms deals at farm sales and nobody seemed to mind that a kid was buying a gun. Before 1969, you even order a gun from a magazine and have it mailed to you too. When I was in jr. high, there was an ad in the American Rifleman magazine for surplus M1 carbines... at $16 each. I've kicked myself ever since for not buying one but back then there was not much you could do with a .30 carbine as there was a state law prohibiting that caliber being used for deer hunting and I already had a .303 SMLE that my great uncle had given me. When I got out of the Army, I went to a gun sale that was being held at the county sheriff's office. They were trying to sell a beat-up M60 for a thousand dollars. If I'd had a thousand dollars to spare back then that gun would now be worth over $50,000.