Jump to content

Recommended Posts

The daughters of Sonny Capone are selling a bunch of family heirlooms:

 

https://witherells.com/auction/a-century-of-notoriety-the-estate-of-al-capone-live-12948

 

Included are a Colt Government Model (not an M1911, as claimed on the site) and a Colt Pocket Hammerless in .380, both supposedly owned by Sonny's father Al himself. Sonny's many guns are also on offer.

 

Yeah, perhaps. It seems there are no papers whatsoever attached to these items, the auctioneer apparently didn't even bother to check the production years of the weapons (or, indeed, the correct designations of same). Yes, the years seem to check out (1912 resp. 1925), but whether Al Capone ever held these weapons -- let alone declared one of them his "favourite" seems mostly a matter of belief. There aren't even any affadavits by the current owners, how ever much that would actually be worth this long removed from the lifetime of Al Capone.

 

Anyway, there is certainly some provinience, although not necessarily that implied by the auctions. I'm sure they're going to sell for a lot of money though :D

 

Cheers

 

HANS

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Hans,

The is some skepticism about that semi auto. Would you know what year that one would be? On the site it states "Partial serial number C 837. Cal .45 refinished at the time of engraving."

 

One of my friends said this "As for Al's favorite .45 in the auction, that's a Commemoration gun, certainly not from Thirties, probably not till Sixties or so, especially with the fancy target sights."

 

Now I know Sonny Capone was an accomplished target shooter and even did the gunsmithing himself. That would explain those sights. He used test new ammo for the Florida police dept. He was in many competitions that made the newspapers. What I wonder is maybe Al gave him this gun? That would be only with your expertise on the date? If not then it's most likely Sonny's and not Al's?

Thank-you for any light you can shed on this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Hans,

The is some skepticism about that semi auto. Would you know what year that one would be? On the site it states "Partial serial number C 837. Cal .45 refinished at the time of engraving."

 

One of my friends said this "As for Al's favorite .45 in the auction, that's a Commemoration gun, certainly not from Thirties, probably not till Sixties or so, especially with the fancy target sights."

 

Now I know Sonny Capone was an accomplished target shooter and even did the gunsmithing himself. That would explain those sights. He used test new ammo for the Florida police dept. He was in many competitions that made the newspapers. What I wonder is maybe Al gave him this gun? That would be only with your expertise on the date? If not then it's most likely Sonny's and not Al's?

Thank-you for any light you can shed on this?

 

I am by no means an expert on the Colt Government (or on Al Capone), but to me that serial number doesn't look like a partial. There is some scratching behind the number, but the C 837 is stamped in rather deep, so the scratching would have to be at least as deep to obliterate any other figures. So I think that's not a partial, but the complete number -- and C 837 means it was produced in 1912.

(Note the complete lack of due dilligence on the part of the auctioneer -- like a Colt Thompson, the Colt Government has a "secret number", which you could check to verify the real number. In other words, we shouldn't be guessing at this, we really could and should know it.)

Anyway, that to me looks like the weapon was built in 1912 and therefore could -- COULD -- have been Al Capone's. Could just as well have been the pistol of any number of other folks, as guns like this tended to change hands numerous times. The refinish, the engraving and the fancy sights are almost certainly later additions, probably even way later (meaning after Al Capone's death), so even if this was Al Capone's pistol at some point it probably never looked like this while he still had it. I'd say this was Sonny Capone's gun and any connection to Al Capone, if it ever existed, has been lost because of the modifications. The apparent lack of any paper items that could corrobate the story further undermines the claimed provinience.

I have seen a photo of a bunch of seized Colt Governments that includes the one carried by Capone in, if I remember correctly, 1929, and that certainly was a completely ordinary pattern -- no engraving, no stag horn stocks, no fancy sights.

 

Cheers

 

HANS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

FJesse James Mother would sell pistols to curiosity seekers as belong to Jesse. For a premium price of course.

 

So, you buy a pistol from decendents of a notorious criminal supposedly belonging to the infamous bad man him self. His "favorite" pistol no less.

 

No photos of the bad man holding the piece or any documentation of any sort.

 

Sounds like a good deal to me !

 

More money than brains ??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

FJesse James Mother would sell pistols to curiosity seekers as belong to Jesse. For a premium price of course.

 

So, you buy a pistol from decendents of a notorious criminal supposedly belonging to the infamous bad man him self. His "favorite" pistol no less.

 

No photos of the bad man holding the piece or any documentation of any sort.

 

Sounds like a good deal to me !

 

More money than brains ??

 

Many wonderful old stories on all this:

 

In their later years both Sitting Bull & Geronimo peddled made up native trash to suckers

Bull started that when he briefly toured with Cody

Geronimo once he was released and sent to Oklahoma

 

Both Wyatt Erp and particularly Bat Masterson sold used junker Colt SAAs, gave some away too

 

There were really only two solid collections of old west outlaw guns with decent provenance

Great one I believe is still viewable, the Sanders museum in Arkansas, maybe Hot Springs ?

Sanders started collecting in the early 1900s, lost much of the original collection in the 1906 quake and fire in San Francisco

he rebuilt it, huge room of displays, guns carried by Cole Younger, Quantrill, Hardin, etc many with wonderful provance

 

By far the best was housed in a steaskhouse and lounge in Shokopee Minnesota

that family had collected for decades, the old man passed on and the family sold everything in the 1970s

Family friend Ed Kokowski was contracted to do the sales, guy was a trip

anyways he made copies of all the vintage paperwork, was still selling bogus guns on it into the 90s when he passed on

 

Folks need to understand up into the early 90s gangland guns didnt have much of a market

like late 70s my pops and I were set up at a show in Ashland WI, oldster there had an amnesty registered 21, pretty beat with no butt, some other odd balls...all with paperwork from his Dad who with the County Sheriff at the time of the Little Bohemia raid

yeah, all Little Bohemia guns Purvis let the Sheriff keep

the asking price on the 21' was like 900 bones in 1977, nope couldnt get pops to jump on that as an investment

ton of paperwork, old news clippings

 

What I did get was a C drum with a big ole bullet crater from the raid, still have that with some paper regarding it

 

Plenty of real deal Western guns sit unappreciated in small museums

Coffeeville is a great example

they have quite an assortment of guns and gear seized from the Dalton Doolin gang

funny part is they have a neatly shortened up Winchester, obviously Little Britches lever gun but staff just dont really care

 

Bunch of Little Bighorn guns scattered about eastern Montana, theres a few in Wibaux's museum

really neat one though is in the Terry museum, a .50 Webley with traces of engraving

found out in the Terry Bad Lands

no doubt one of the brace that fool Custer carried to his demise

again the old broad running the museum cared less when I explained what they actually had

 

Another classic

around 89' a native teen was busted in Fargo ND after attempting a robbery with, now get this...a tacked up Winchester 1866 in .44RF !!!

well turned out the kid had stole gramps rifle and old truck on the Fort Berthold reserve

the boy was like the great great grandson the Chief Gall and the 66' was the very same rifle Gall carried at the Big Horn battle

once the word got out the rifle grew legs and vanished from the evidence room, Lord knows where it ended up

 

Was a time you would run into native families out of that same band show up at the Minot ND gun show with Custer vintage SRC trapdoors

not for sale, they were family heirlooms from the battle

handled three different ones as well as a Henry...all battle guns

 

I dont know what to think of this Capone gun

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

The real collector's item would be Capone's baseball bat, allegedly his tool of choice for resolving personnel issues within his organization.

 

Is that bat an NFA item?

 

:-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...