Al Capone’s family is selling dozens of the mobster’s personal items at an auction in October, including family photographs, an 18-karat gold and platinum belt buckle, and a Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol, according to The Washington Post.
Capone, the ruthless Chicago Mafia boss known as “Scarface” who ordered the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, left behind nearly 175 heirlooms that were eventually passed down to his three granddaughters who today live in Northern California.
Recent wildfires have ravaged the area around their homes, leaving them fearful that they could lose all the prized family possessions, the Post reports.
The items were collected from Capone’s former estate on Palm Island in Miami Beach, and inherited by the women after their father died in 2004, according to the Post.
Among the possessions to be sold is a three-page letter Capone wrote to his granddaughter Diane Capone while he was serving time in Alcatraz Island Federal Penitentiary.
“I can’t imagine that anyone could read this letter without having at least a hint of an awareness about the fact that this man was a very complex person,” the 77-year-old daughter of Capone’s only child, Sonny, said according to the Post. “His name might be synonymous with Gangland Chicago, but there was another whole side to the man.”
Capone also served two years in the Atlanta penitentiary.
Witherell’s auction house is administering the sale of his possessions, the Post reports.
Capone died in 1947.
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