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In those days, Colt sold his firearms through a small force of traveling salesmen, known as agents, and between 15 and 20 “jobbers,” the old term for wholesalers who sold large quantities of guns to smaller retail outlets such as hardware stores. In addition, the company maintained sales offices in both New York City and London. The sales department also would accept direct orders at the plant, providing they were from someone who was rich and famous, a friend of the Colt family, or a buyer of a large quantity of weapons. This practice would continue long after Sam’s death. (In July of 1885, frontiersman and some-time marshal/sometime outlaw W.B. “Bat” Masterson sent Colt his order for a nickel-plated .45 caliber single action revolver. “Make it very Easy on [the] trigger,” he wrote under the letterhead of the Opera House Saloon of Dodge City, Kansas. His letter still survives in the Colt archives.)

Sam Colt was later recognized as one of the earliest American manufacturers to fully realize the potential of an effective marketing program that included sales promotion, publicity, product sampling, advertising and public relations. Whether or not any specific bribes were asked or offered is not known, but given the climate of the time, such would not have been unusual.