: 6:11 PM PDT August 24, 2021
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The granddaughters of Al Capone are set to hold an estate sale in which they plan to auction off dozens of the infamous mobster’s personal possessions, family photos, and more.

Titled “A Century of Notoriety: The Estate of Al Capone,” the auction includes 174 pieces that once belonged to Capone, his wife Mae, and their only child Sonny.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ab...103-07538291-8fde-467e-8ae2-0488ffea23e6

The family should do pretty well financially on this auction. There are tons of people out there who will bid on anything that Al owned,so they can tell their friends "this dresser was once owned by Al Capone".
As far as the .45,I think that it will be the runaway star of the auction. They're starting the bidding at 100-150 K,but I'll bet that it brings in 3 or 4 times that. This assumes, of course, that they can provide sufficient provenance for the item. To be honest,if I had an extra 150 K under my mattress,I'd bid on it in a heartbeat.

How can they authenticate the guns and knives were his ?? Sounds like a scam to me

It's being sold through an auction house so there must be some provenance. There's nice assortment of items some pretty affordable, here's the list of items:
https://witherells.com/auction/a-century-of-notoriety-the-estate-of-al-capone-live-12948/lots

Costello and Luciano

Part of Capone auction.

Yes. Mob bosses don't have to carry because they're surrounded by bodyguards. And if they did carry, they'd be sitting ducks for any cop who wanted to bust them for possession.
Ironically, after the '29 Mob convention in Atlantic City, Capone decided to put himself on ice for a while. He went to Philly and arranged to have himself arrested for carrying a gun. Spent about a year in a very comfortable jail setup, courtesy of the warden and his money.

What I found suspicious is that in the description for 2 of the pistols that belonged to Al,the provenance is listed as "Al Capone to Mae Coughlin to Sonny Capone to his daughters,uninterrupted". This leads me to believe that these guns were legally owned by Capone, perhaps purchased by him or given as gifts by people looking to curry favor with "the Big Fella". I'm sure that he didn't pass down to his family weapons with altered serial numbers or other characteristics that a gangster would have on a pistol that he carried in the street. As you mentioned,it would be unnecessary for Capone to have a piece on him. My guess is that these guns were kept in a display box or similar place so that he could show them off. Capone was on friendly terms with a lot of high ranking cops,politicians,and businessmen. Who wouldn't get a kick out of telling their pals, "I was at Big Al's for a cocktail party,and he showed me his personal pistol"?

My gut instinct is that the Capone family is letting potential bidders assume that Al carried (and maybe even used ) one of these guns . No such claim is made in the item description,but no claim to the contrary is made either. I'd characterize it as a "sin of omission"

"Also up for sale is the Colt .45-caliber 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.

Diane Capone said she didn't know if the gun was used to commit any crimes and said her grandfather, who she called Papa, was never charged with killing anyone.


“He was accused of doing that, but he was never found guilty of shooting anyone,” she said.

The pistol with elaborate etchings and a wooden grip will be the centerpiece of the auction and is valued at up to $150,000, said Brian Witherell, founder of Witherell’s Auction House."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnew...gun-personal-items-head-auction-79666756

Hmmm, I'm not sure how accurate that statement is and it makes you wonder if they're trying to hype it up a little in order to drive interest and draw potential bidders.

“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.

Diane Capone said she didn't know if the gun was used to commit any crimes and said her grandfather, who she called Papa, was never charged with killing anyone.

To me,the operative word is "probably" I agree that it looks like the Family is definitely pumping up the value of this item.
At this point,all we have is uncorroborated 3rd party hearsay.

Being somewhat of a gun guy, my understanding was that Capone always had a Colt 1903 hammerless .32 ACP in his pocket.
Easy to carry but not something I carry for self defense. Most of us Vietnam types carry Colt 1911s 'cause they don't make .46s :-)

Lots of gangsters in the Prohibition era had 1911's because they were the standard sidearm for US military in WWI and were sold as war surplus. Thompson submachineguns ("Chicago Typewriter"), favorite weapons of Chicago mobs, were not illegal in the Twenties because there was no Federal law against private citizens owning machineguns until 1933:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Thompson+submachine+gun+ad+showing+cowboy&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS900US900&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=5doir8Sc2qPYSM%252CoprgVqPdP-rf-M%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kT1IFP6NQ71aaLto1kRYBoGYBkQRQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw_tmWgtLyAhUYHM0KHUFnAAoQ9QF6BAgPEAE#imgrc=5doir8Sc2qPYSM

Before ya know it Rick Harrison from Pawn Stars will call in Franzese and Alite as experts to veriy if its authentic !!

LOL Good one !

Here's a couple articles about the Chicago mob and the :Tommy Gun"

Concerning Louie "Two Gun" Alterie:
The Thompson submachine gun

On a 1924 hunting trip, Alterie demonstrated to his boss, O’Banion, the new Thompson submachine gun. Local ranchers had been using the automatic firearm to protect their ranches from coyotes. O’Banion was impressed enough that he stopped in Denver to purchase three of these weapons at a “downtown Denver hardware store.” (My best guess is that these were purchased at Tritch Hardware, the most prominent downtown hardware store at the time.) O’Banion ended up purchasing 250(!) guns in total during this visit. Most of these weapons were probably the guns kept by Alterie at his Jarre Canyon properties and later at Sweetwater Ranch. But at least one of these “Tommy Guns” went back to Chicago with O’Banion and Alterie. This suggests that these gun purchases in Denver introduced the Thompson submachine gun into Chicago gangland warfare!

Also, concerning Peter von Frantzius
:
Peter von Frantzius (sometimes Frantizius) was a Chicago businessman and arms dealer to the Chicago underworld during Prohibition, later dubbed by the press as "The Armorer of Gangland".

He was the son of German immigrants. His father Fritz von Frantzius was a stock market dealer and died 1917.

Frantzius started with mail order sales of guns from his parents home and opened a shop later on. 1924 he had a very successful business selling all manner of sports goods including guns.

An almost exclusive supplier of the Chicago Outfit (although often selling to rival gangs such as the North Side Mob), he was one of the first to supply "Tommy" submachine guns and other specialized weaponry connected to countless gangland slayings during the bootleg wars of the 1920s, including the murder of Brooklyn mobster Frankie Yale in 1928, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929 and the 1930 gangland murder of Chicago journalist Jake Lingle.

On one occasion, when asked by authorities to explain the sale of six machine guns to known organized crime figures, Frantzius answered before a coroner's jury that he had assumed the weapons were for the use of the Mexican government to use against revolutionaries.

1st Image; Machine guns used in St. Valentines Day Massacre, now kept by the Berrien County, Michigan Sheriff's Dept.
2nd Image; .38 caliber Smith and Wesson Revolver seized during a 1928 arrest in Miami now on display at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.
3rd Image; .38 caliber Iver Johnson Safety Hammerless misidentified as the .38 caliber Smith and Wesson. Given to Capone by his brother, it was carried by his bodyguard during 1931 tax trial and seized by the IRS.

How cool would it be to own the St.Valentines Day collection?
Talk about iconic firearms! I'd put them right up there with Oswald's rifle and Booth's derringer.

St. Mary's Shining Star of the Sea on Court St in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn where Al and Mae Capone were married in December 1918. I lived 10 blocks away and Bobby Boriello's social club The One Over Golf Club was just down the block.

"Heirlooms from the estate of famed gangster Al Capone sold at auction in Sacramento for more than $3 million.

Witherell’s auction house sold nearly 200 pieces from the Capone family Friday at the Sutter Club in Sacramento, with some items fetching for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The top seller was a .45-caliber Colt pistol, Capone’s favorite gun, which garnered a winning bid of $860,000. The next-highest seller was a .38-caliber Colt pistol, which went for $200,000."
https://amp.sacbee.com/news/local/article254887712.html

The gun that Jack Ruby used to kill Lee Harvey Oswald fetched $220,000 at auction.

wow