Sears began when a Minnesota station agent inherited a crate nobody wanted.
In 1886 a jeweler refused a shipment of watches, so Richard Sears, the 23-year-old depot clerk, struck a deal with the wholesaler — he could keep every dollar above $12 a watch. He sold the watches to fellow station agents at $14 apiece and, six months later, had cleared roughly $5,000, enough to quit the railroad for mail-order watches.
Sears on Brandseum