Stick 'em up
Buy the guns of famous Texas outlaws for $200,000 each: The Bonnie and Clydeauction buzz
In a time when notorious gangsters ruled the land, they were perhaps the most famous. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, better known as bank-robbing outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, broke out of rural dust bowl Dallas and embarked on a brief but infamous career of robberies, murder and police gunfights throughout the South and Midwest before being ambushed and killed by police in Louisiana.
Eighty years after they rose to fame, Bonnie and Clyde's guns and other personal effects are going up for auction September 30 in New Hampshire. The RR Auction sale also includes memorabilia from public enemies such as John Dillinger and Al Capone and lawmen Wyatt Earp and Eliot Ness.
Items up for auction include the Colt .38 Parker had taped to her inner thigh at the time of her death and the Colt .45 Barrow had in his waistband.
Auction items include the "squat" Colt .38 Parker had taped to her inner thigh at the time of her death and the Colt .45 Barrow had in his waistband, as well as a Colt .45 that was also in the car and another .38 revolver belonging to Barrow that was found in a car he drove in 1930. Each gun is estimated to sell for between $100,000 and $200,000.
Also among the memoribilia are Clyde's gold pocketwatch and Bonnie's leatherette makeup case, which after her death was found in the car with a lipstick, a box of Coty face powder and a powder puff. Other items in the lot include a letter that Clyde wrote to his brother (signed with "bud," his alias) and a series of letters from Clyde's sister-in-law and Barrow Gang member Blanche Barrow to her mother during her stint in Missouri prison.
Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who planned their fatal shoot-out, was given Parker's and Barrow's guns by the Louisiana police as payment for his services, and the collection for sale comes from the estate of Texas collector Robert E. Davis, who acquired Hamer's gun collection as well as other items.