1. The Red Indian dope trick

Even in the days when America was known as the New World, it was a country with a reputation for its spirit of enterprise and the ability of its people to make a good deal.

When the settlers started negotiating, the natives hardly knew what had hit them – and in the summer of 1626, probably the most spectacular real estate coup in history took place.

Governor Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Company had the job of buying Manhattan Island from the Indians.

After some haggling with Chief Manhasset, the price was agreed at 24 dollars' worth of kettles, axes and cloth.

Today, $24 would not buy one square foot of office space in New York City, and an office block in central Manhattan changes hands for around $80 million. Even allowing for inflation, Minuit got himself a real bargain.

2. Not again, Josephine!

You would think that the Manhattan deal would remain a one-off for ever. After all, the Americans would surely never find anyone as naive as the Indian chief again.

But less than two centuries later, they did - and this time the loser was Napoleon, Emperor of France and (in his early years, at least) a brilliant military tactician.

In 1803, Napoleon had his mind on European affairs (in particular, an invasion of Britain), so he decided to dispense with France's American possessions.

He sold the entire Mississippi valley, an area of 828,000 square miles extending from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico and westwards to the Rockies, for just over 27 million dollars.

Through this deal, known as the Louisiana purchase, President Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States for only around 5 cents per acre.

The judgement of the Emperor, on the other hand, never seemed to be quite the same again.

3. Striking a bargain

Just occasionally, however, the seller does come out of a clever business deal on top – as in this example of a man who sold an idea to a manufacturing company.

The particular beauty of this deal lies in the fact that the idea was not one which he could put into practice himself.

He simply approached a leading match company and offered to tell them how they could save thousands of pounds by means of one change to their manufacturing procedures. The change would cost absolutely nothing to carry out – but he would require a substantial percentage of the savings in return for the idea.

Not surprisingly, the match company were more than a little suspicious, and turned him down. After all, if this idea was so obvious to an outsider, surely they could work it out for themselves.

They duly went through the whole factory with a fine tooth-comb – but found nothing. By this time, they were so intrigued by the man's offer that they went back to him and agreed that if he could save them money, he could have the cut he wanted.

“Just put one striking surface on each matchbox instead of two”, he advised them. “You'll cut the money you spend on abrasives by 50 %”.

They did – and they did. And over the next few years, the man who sold them the ide made a small fortune.