https://i.imgur.com/t4kMMeU.jpg
Now that is cool!
I was doing some stuff in England in the 1980's, and actually got to fondle a couple of genuine commando daggers before their laws got incredibly stupid. I would not have caried one by choice, but they would be awfully neat to have hanging on the wall in my office.
Per my profile pic, I have one. I got it for like $20 in an army Navy store in the 70s. The leather scabbard had fallen apart. There was a box of them at the time. Lawd I loved Army Navy stores. I was like 12 years old, dude didn't care a bit he was selling me a big commando dagger. I knew it was something to hold onto being a student of WWII. I do wish I'd kept the other amazing things I had from those stores, but the dagger is what remains.Quote:
Originally Posted by SeriousStudent
https://bannermancastle.org/history/Quote:
Originally Posted by WillBrink
You and me both. The amount of weapons and equipment which flooded the market back in the 60s-80s was incredible. Then again, without the internet it was hit or miss going into places and trying to find something. I can recall going to a few of them with my Dad and being awestruck at the sheer volume of space which was filled with incredible cool things!!
On a side note, my father used to go to Bannermans, and I can only imagine how impressive that was. I still have some of the things he got there, and I believe that dagger was one of them. He did comment to me that dagger was nothing special, it was in a barrel of them. The guns (1873 Springfield Trapdoor and Smith cavalry carbine) we still have as well which came from there, and he said it was all stacked the same way. Barrels upon barrels of rifles, swords, lances and other wonderful toys.
Quote:
Francis Bannerman (Frank) was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1851 and came to the United States to live in Brooklyn, at the age of three. His father took up the business of selling goods at Navy auctions. Young Frank, while still in school, began to collect scrap from the harbor, then full of sailing ships. He was so successful at this that it soon became a business. At the end of the Civil War he increased his wares by buying surplus stock at government auctions. This source continued even after the Spanish American War.
The business, known everywhere as “Bannerman’s” was founded in 1865 in Brooklyn. As more and more material was acquired, it moved several times, finally arriving at 501 Broadway, in Manhattan. From the Spanish War so much equipment and ammunition was bought that the laws of the city forced them to look for storage outside the city limits.
If anyone has more info regarding Bannermans, I would love to read it. We still have several of their old catalogs as well.
https://bannermancastle.org/history/
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My inner nerd rejoiced when I saw this custom SpydieChef with an etched image of the tree of Gondor and Elvish script.
"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
https://i.imgur.com/Hj8Q4Ax.jpg