Interarms
International Armament Corporation
founded 1953· dissolved 1999
Alexandria-based arms dealership founded by Samuel Cummings in 1953, doing business as Interarms. For much of the Cold War the firm held one of the largest private inventories of military surplus small arms in the world, with offices at 10 Prince Street and warehouses along South Union Street.
International Armament Corporation — universally known as Interarms — was incorporated in 1953 and relocated from early offices in Washington to the Alexandria waterfront in the late 1950s [1] Brogan & Zarca, Deadly Business, 1983 Book . Under Samuel Cummings’s direction the firm specialized in the bulk purchase of surplus military rifles, pistols, and carbines from European governments, their refurbishment, and resale to the United States civilian market and to foreign buyers.
Interarms’s Alexandria operation grew through the 1960s and 1970s to encompass office space at 10 Prince Street and a warehouse complex along South Union Street extending over several blocks. Coverage in Guns magazine (1959) and Sports Illustrated (1970) gave the company national visibility; the 1983 biography by Patrick Brogan and Albert Zarca remains the principal extended account of the firm’s operations [1] Brogan & Zarca, Deadly Business, 1983 Book . Interarms’s Alexandria activities wound down in the late 1990s after Cummings’s death and the subsequent sale of remaining inventory.
Associated places
- 1958–1999
Interarms's South Union Street warehouses occupied a several-block stretch of the waterfront for four decades.
10 Prince Street — International Armament Corporation (Interarms)
1958–1999Interarms used 10 Prince Street as its administrative headquarters from the late 1950s to the late 1990s.
South Union Street — International Armament Corporation (Interarms)
1958–1999Interarms occupied the South Union Street warehouses from the late 1950s through the late 1990s, storing surplus military firearms.
Sources
- 1.
Patrick Brogan and Albert Zarca, Deadly Business: Sam Cummings, Interarms, and the Arms Trade, New York: W. W. Norton, 1983.
Book
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