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An anonymous buyer has shelled out more than half a million dollars to purchase two pistols the notorious American gangsters Bonnie and Clyde were carrying when they were gunned down by US Police in 1934.
Bonnie Parker’s .38-caliber Colt Detective Special and Clyde Barrow’s .45-caliber Colt Model 1911 were the biggest-ticket items in a USD 1.1 million auction of 134 artifacts in Nashua, New Hampshire, the Daily Mail reported.
About two-thirds of the auctioned items were from Bonnie and Clyde, but items also came from other notorious criminals, including Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger.
Bonnie’s snub-nosed Colt revolver was discovered taped to her thigh when she was killed in Louisiana.
It drew the highest bid and sold for $ 2,64,000, said Bobby Livingston, Vice-President of RR Auction in Amherst, New Hampshire, which held the auction.
Clyde Model 1911 automatic sold for $ 2,40,000 to the same bidder, who didn’t want to be named, Livingston said.
Many of the auction items came from the estate of the late collector Robert Davis of Waco, Texas, with the remainder coming from various other collections.
Most of the items came from famous gangsters and outlaws, but some were linked to law enforcement officials including Elliot Ness and Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, who led a posse that tracked down and killed Bonnie and Clyde in Louisiana.
Clyde’s pocket watch sold for $ 36,000, Livingston said.
A 1921 Morgan silver dollar that was found in his pocket after he was killed sold for $ 32,000.
Also in the auction was a letter that Clyde wrote to his brother LC Barrow on the back of a photo showing a house on a platform surrounded by water. He signed it “bud”, his code name when he was on the run.
According to FBI files, Bonnie and Clyde met in Texas in 1930 and were believed to have committed 13 murders and several robberies and burglaries by the time they died.
Law enforcement officials were among their victims. The duo became infamous as they travelled across America’s Midwest and South, holding up banks and stores with other gang members.
Texas Ranger Frank Hamer led the posse of six lawmen who carried out the ambush, and auction officials said authorities gifted him the guns from the lovers’ bodies as part of his compensation for the operation.
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