Call it the shootout at the gun auction corral: One of 20th-century Al Capone’s guns is expected to sell for up to $115,000 next month. But a sidearm of a marauder from the previous century is expected to shoot down the price for the Chicago mobster’s Colt .38, according to news reports about a private collector’s online auction.
Al Capone booking photo. (Getty)
Cole Younger booking photo. (Getty)
The older outlaw is Younger, as in Thomas Coleman “Cole” Younger, who ran with brothers Jesse and Frank James in the 1800s. Younger was the elder brother of Jim, John, and Bob Younger, also members of the notorious James-Younger gang. The six-shooter reportedly could sell for nearly $140,000.
Capone’s revolver was made in May 1929 after he ordered the assassination of seven rivals in the notorious St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in snowy Chicago, while he alibied himself with a Miami vacation. A letter from Capone’s sister-in-law confirms the firearm’s authenticity, according to the London Telegraph.
Capone, who ruled the Chicago underworld during Prohibition until he was busted in 1931 for tax evasion. He was imprisoned on that lesser charge because Eliot Ness and other feds couldn’t nail him for the murder and mayhem he inflicted, as popularized in the movie “The Untouchables” and its TV predecessor. He was paroled in 1939 and died in 1947.
Capone was nicknamed Scarface, and Younger’s face looked pretty rough, too, when he was injured during a raging shootout with a posse after what became known as the Great Northfield, Minn., Raid turned out to be not so great for the gang on Sept. 7, 1876. He pleaded guilty to avoid the noose and was sentenced to life in prison.
Younger was paroled in 1901 and died in 1916 in his home in Lee’s Summit, Mo.
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