Born in Scotland in 1851, Francis Bannerman IV grew up in New York. Son of a salesman who specialized in reselling goods bought at local auctions, the junior Francis started picking up lots of goods himself and selling them in smaller pieces to collectors of curios, relics, and interesting items. Then he discovered government surplus.
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After the Civil War ended in 1865, a young Mr. Bannerman started bidding on huge lots of captured Confederate guns, often winning as many as 11,000 at a time. When those stockpiles were sold out, he kept in touch with the Army, and every time the Ordnance Corps adopted a new piece of equipment, the wily New Yorker showed up with his checkbook sniffing around stores of recently replaced surplus gear.
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