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1889 FRANCIS BANNERMAN’S SALES CATALOG LISTING FOR
A GROUP OF GUNS SURRENDERED BY SITTING BULL:
Several years ago from a large private research library
I purchased what I believe is an original 1889 Francis
Bannerman sales catalog. It is the small format
catalog, measuring 8 ¼” by 5 ¼”, which featured the
latest additions to his inventory.
Other
than a cursory glance through it at the time, I didn't
read the text for any detail until recently when looking
for a reference on something and I had run out of
options. Spying the catalog on the book shelf, and
thinking Bannerman may have offered something similar
through the years, I began browsing through the pages.
There I found an innocuous listing for what was probably
the one of the most significant offerings that ever
passed through Bannerman’s hands.
Buried
on page 7, between bold large type face listings for CW
"bombshells", Dragoon Horse Pistols ($2 ea. for what was
probably the M1855 Pistol Carbines WITH the
shoulder stocks) and Reindeer Skin fur coats from the
Greeley Arctic Relief Expedition, lay a listing in small
plain type face for a “Lot
of 50 Assorted Rifles, Muskets, and Carbines, part of
the lot surrendered by the Indian Chief Sitting Bull to
the U.S. Government after the Custer Massacre”.
The description is fairly
cursory, but it does mention that some of the stocks are
repaired with buckskin and that some of the arms are
still loaded. The casual nature of the
listing and its location deep within the catalog with no
special effort to highlight the listing or draw
customers’ attention to it is only overshadowed by the
prices indicated:
$3-$5 each - except
for "some" Henry rifles in the group which are priced at
a staggering $7 each. Imagine being able to buy
the entire lot for less than $350……plus the shipping, of
course.
Framing this offering within the historical timeline of
the Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull’s subsequent escape
into Canada and his eventual return to the United States
to surrender, this catalog listing was published less
than eight years after Sitting Bull turned these guns
over to the government officials and just over a year
before the Hunkpapa leader was killed at the Standing
Rock Reservation.
This
listing is the sort of thing that dreams are made of –
if only we were able to slip back in time for an
afternoon with a couple of pockets full of
cash........... Unfortunately, as a friend observed
after seeing this listing, so much of the interesting
inventory that passed through Bannerman’s stores were
purchased solely for their utilitarian value at the
time, with no thought to preserving the provenance of
the piece, and if they exist today, they are just
another old piece of unidentified “stuff”.
The
photographs are provided below are for your enjoyment.
The catalog is not for sale.
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