American gangster Al Capone is photographed while in custody in Philadelphia, May 18, 1929. Associated Press/AP Hide caption
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Al Capone's “Sweetheart” pistol was expected to sell for $885,000 this week before its unidentified owner withdrew it from the auction. The gun was purchased for $1 million in 2021, and the owner believes it would fetch even more today.
But who would buy a notorious gangster's gun for just $1?
For example, the American War of Independence wasn’t sparked by a single musket shot fired in Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775. “Once upon a time, a group of embattled peasants stood here and fired a shot that was heard around the world,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote.
This is not the Colt .45 carried by Deputy Wyatt Earp in the legendary “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” in Tombstone, Arizona. That gun sold at auction for $250,000.
This isn't one of the flintlock dueling pistols that Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton shot at each other with on the plains of Weehawken, New Jersey. Two centuries earlier, the musical set that heartbreaking scene to song, with Hamilton asking, “If I fired my arrow, would you remember me like this? / Suppose this bullet was my legacy?”
Al Capone's gun was a 1911 Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol, owned by a criminal who was never charged with murder but was implicated in hundreds of murders, perhaps the most infamous being the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, in which six members of the Bugs Moran gang and a friendly eye surgeon were pinned against the wall of a garage on Chicago's north side and shot at point-blank range.
Richmond Auctions, based in Greenville, South Carolina, does not use commercially shy words like murder, gore or carnage in its catalogs. The gun specialist told the Chicago Sun-Times that Al Capone's guns “are relics of an era defined by lawlessness and superhuman figures. Their deep connection to Al Capone adds to their appeal, making them must-haves for world-class collectors.”
You may be wondering: why would anyone want to feel a “deep connection” or “special attraction” to historical figures who were notoriously unscrupulous and cruel?
If the selling prices of relics from a life full of blood and crime have fallen slightly over the past few years, then the trend may be heading in the right direction.
