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Bonnie & Clyde Artifacts Capture Collectors’ Pocketbooks at Boston Auction

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Tony Maples Photography

 

Items of importance to famous outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were sold at a Boston auction on Saturday, June 24. Among the items belonging to this Texas duo was a three-headed snake ring which reportedly sold for $25,000. Items sold in the Gangsters, Outlaws and Lawmen auction included artifacts connected to Bonnie and Clyde, together with some of the most notorious gangsters the U.S. has ever seen.

Bonnie & Clyde Artifacts Capture Collectors’ Pocketbooks at Boston Auction

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Other artifacts belonging to this famous crime spree pair from the Lone Star State included a “So Long” letter which was written by Parker and signed by Barrow prior to their deaths in 1934, which they believed to be inevitable, based on the lifestyle they lived. That item sold for $16,250. Another letter, which was typed, including some fingerprints, and signed by Barrow, was also up on the auction block, as well as their original arrest warrants.

Bonnie & Clyde Artifacts Capture Collectors’ Pocketbooks at Boston Auction

Photo: Facebook/Realidad Retorcida

Likewise, a pair of blood-stained glasses that were purported to have been worn by Parker on the day she was shot and killed, were also anticipated to be up for sale. These, together with other rarely seen items had made a stop in Dallas earlier this year for viewing, where experts gave more than a $50,000 estimate as the value of the glasses. These, however, were withdrawn from the sale by RR Auction (the Boston-based auction house) after a DNA analysis proved inconclusive.

Bonnie & Clyde Artifacts Capture Collectors’ Pocketbooks at Boston Auction

Photo: Facebook/The Vintage News

Although a 1934 Shreveport Journal article identified that Parker was said to be wearing glasses that were “thickly splotched with blood” when she and Barrow were ambushed and killed in Louisiana, the artifact could not be proven within a safe measure of accuracy, and therefore was removed from the sale. Over the years, there had been many questions regarding whether the glasses belonged to Parker, since she had never been photographed wearing them.

Bonnie & Clyde Artifacts Capture Collectors’ Pocketbooks at Boston Auction

Photo: Facebook/Chicago Police Department

Additional items from other U.S. outlaws that did make it to the auction block consisted of a diamond pocket watch which had belonged to Al Capone. Selling for $84,375, it was reported to have been the artifact which sold for the highest bid. A handwritten musical composition entitled “Humoresque” which he had completed while spending time in Alcatraz in the 1930s was also included in the sale and went for $18,750. Showing Capone’s softer side, it contained the words: “You thrill and fill this heart of mine, with gladness like a soothing symphony, over the air, you gently float, and in my soul, you strike a note.”

Source:

The Dallas Morning News