Ingvar Kamprad bulk very cheaply from Stockholm, sell them individually at a low price, and still make a good profit. From matches, he expanded to selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds, and later ballpoint pens and pencils. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a cash reward for succeeding in his studies. Ingvar attended Göteborgs handelsinstitut, now part of Hvitfeldtska Gymnasiet, from 1943 to 1945. In 1943, when he was 17, Kamprad founded IKEA, selling replicas of his uncle Ernst's kitchen table. In 1948, Kamprad diversified his portfolio, adding furniture. His business was mostly mail order. The acronym IKEA is made
Ingvar Kamprad ("Fanny") Glatz was born in Radonitz (Radonice) in Bohemia in then-Austria-Hungary; they left Germany for Sweden in 1896. The surname Kamprad was a variant of "Comrade" and dates back to the 14th century; in the 19th century the Kamprad family had become wealthy estate owners in Thuringia. Achim Kamprad's mother was a distant relative of Paul von Hindenburg. Achim was the younger son of an estate owner and had bought the farm Elmtaryd (presently standardized "Älmtaryd") near the small village of Agunnaryd (now part of Ljungby Municipality) in the province of Småland; with 449 hectares of land it was the