AL CAPONE’S FAVORITE GUN, PERSONAL ITEMS HEAD TO AUCTION
SAN FRANCISCO» Al Capone is infamous for having been a ruthless mob boss, but one of his granddaughters says his softer side will shine through when the family auctions the Prohibition-era gangster’s personal items — including diamond-encrusted jewelry with his initials, family photographs and his favorite handgun.
Capone’s three granddaughters also will auction a letter he wrote to their father and his only child, Albert “Sonny” Capone, from Alcatraz, where the mobster served an 11-year sentence after his 1934 tax evasion conviction. In the letter written in pencil, Al Capone refers to Sonny as “son of my heart.”
He was called Public Enemy No. 1 after the 1929 “Valentine’s Day Massacre” of seven members of a rival bootlegger gang in Chicago by his associates.
But granddaughter Diane Capone describes him differently.
“He was very loving, very devoted to family, very generous, and the letter that we have is such a poignant, beautiful letter from a father to his son. These are things that the public doesn’t know,” said Diane Capone, 77.
Diane Capone and her two surviving sisters will sell 174 items at the Oct. 8 auction titled “A Century of Notoriety: The Estate of Al Capone” hosted by Witherell’s Auction House in Sacramento, Calif. Among the pieces are goldrimmed porcelain fine china, ornate furniture, artwork and Dresden figurines that once decorated the Palm Island, Fla., villa where the Chicago mobster lived after his release from prison and until his death in 1947.
Also up for sale is the Colt .45caliber pistol Capone always carried with him and used several times to protect himself, Diane Capone said. “That particular .45 was used in self-defense, and it probably saved his life on a few occasions and so, he referred to it as his favorite,” she said.