Whatever happened to Interarms??
- Thread starter GWbiker
- Start date
Dfariswheel
New member
The owner was the famous (infamous) Samuel Cummings.
He was well known as a world-wide buyer and seller of military weapons from pistols up to ships, apparently.
He was one of the hated "Merchants of Death" that bought up the entire surplus arms inventory from a country and sold them new weapons.
The surplus weapons were then sold all over the world, including here in the US.
He started the company in 1940's and got his start buying up WWII surplus weapons.
His company was based in Monaco, and was named International Arms, known as Interarmco, and as a US commercial company as Interarms.
Back in the 1960's I saw a photo of the company dock in Virginia. There were two LARGE freighters full of surplus rifles and pistols being unloaded and several more waiting in the Roads for their turn.
He died back in the 1990's, and his surviving daughter didn't want to keep running the business, so she closed it down.
He was well known as a world-wide buyer and seller of military weapons from pistols up to ships, apparently.
He was one of the hated "Merchants of Death" that bought up the entire surplus arms inventory from a country and sold them new weapons.
The surplus weapons were then sold all over the world, including here in the US.
He started the company in 1940's and got his start buying up WWII surplus weapons.
His company was based in Monaco, and was named International Arms, known as Interarmco, and as a US commercial company as Interarms.
Back in the 1960's I saw a photo of the company dock in Virginia. There were two LARGE freighters full of surplus rifles and pistols being unloaded and several more waiting in the Roads for their turn.
He died back in the 1990's, and his surviving daughter didn't want to keep running the business, so she closed it down.
A book review: www.cruffler.com/bookreview-July00.html
"By maintaining a huge inventory (enough at one time, claimed Cummings, to equip forty infantry divisions), Interarms was able to satisfy most, if not all orders regardless of size or type as well as maintain a virtual monopoly on the surplus arms market. It is possible then to at least make the argument that Cummings' greatest contribution was not to the arms industry, but to the modern internet marketplace, whose most successful business paradigm he pioneered."
"By maintaining a huge inventory (enough at one time, claimed Cummings, to equip forty infantry divisions), Interarms was able to satisfy most, if not all orders regardless of size or type as well as maintain a virtual monopoly on the surplus arms market. It is possible then to at least make the argument that Cummings' greatest contribution was not to the arms industry, but to the modern internet marketplace, whose most successful business paradigm he pioneered."
Thanks for the info.
I once owned several Interarms imports, a West German PPK/S, Mauser Hsc .32, CZ 1945 .25 and an Erfurt - Erma .22 semiauto carbine. I currently have a Starfire-Interarms M-43. (1993 production)
As I remember the surplus weapons from WWII were pretty good quality when compared to today's often unreliable and cheaply made pot metal/plastic covered handguns.