Saturday, June 25, 2011

AL CAPONE'S GUN FETCHES OVER $100K AT AUCTION

SCARFACE
NOTORIOUS mob kingpin Al Capone's pistol has fetched more then $100,000 at auction, according to auctioneer's Christie's.
The $107,337 price is more than the $95,600 paid by a California collector for a pistol that once belonged to Depression-era gangster and bank robber John Dillinger and highlights the continued obsession with the onetime king of the Chicago underworld. 
Capone's empire was worth millions of dollars, raked in from illegal booze, gambling and prostitution, until his reign ended in 1931 he pleaded guilty to tax evasion and prohibition charges.
After serving almost eight years behind bars he went into seclusion on an estate near Miami, Florida, where he died of a stroke and pneumonia in January 1947.
The auction house says the gun was manufactured in 1929, the year of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, when seven people were slain during clashes in Chicago between Capone's gang and a rival mob.
It was sold along with a letter from Madeleine Capone Morichetti, the widow of Al Capone's brother Ralph, confirming the gun "previously belonged to and was only used by Al Capone while he was alive."

No comments:

Post a Comment