== Colt == 

 Ah, good point.  Perhaps I need to draw that out better!  At that point in time, guns for the most part were made individually.  A gunsmith would take a piece of wood and cut a blank for the stock from it, make or purchase a barrel, make the lock, make or procure small parts, assemble, fit and final finish the gun.  As you could imagine making guns like this would be very time consuming.  Colt wanted to invest in machines to make all these small parts, but the idea in manufacturing was so new that the investors didn't have faith in it working; plus the economy was in severe decline at the time.  Colt was the president, but the board had to reign him in at times.  These were men of means and while they were sold on his idea he was only 22 or 23 at the time.  He was regarded by most of the board as a spendthrift and would think nothing of spending $100's (probably thousands in today's money) lavishly entertaining/bribing government officials for potential sales.  He was known for getting people intoxicated during his sales pitches.  In 1843 the company was basically sold out from under him by the board and the machinery auctioned off. -