Bonnie and Clyde's guns to be sold at auction

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
7/13/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Notorious Depression-era American bank robbers weapons expected to fetch top dollar

The guns that the notorious Bonnie and Clyde - the Depression-era criminals that swept the nation's banks in a string of armed robberies. Bonnie parker's .38-caliber revolver along with Clyde Barrows' .45-caliber pistol - the weapons they had with them when they were ambushed and killed by the police in 1934 - are now up for auction, and are expected to fetch top dollar.

With her blonde eyes, blonde hair and standing well under five feet tall, Bonnie Parker joined Clyde Barrow in a robbery and killing spree chiefly to escape the boredom of 1930s America. The gun she had taped to her leg at the time of her death at the hands of lawmen is now going up for auction.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The guns that Bonnie had secured to an inner thigh with white medical tape and Clyde had tucked into his waistband were retrieved by agents after the shooting.

Those weapons will be going up for auction in New Hampshire on Sept. 30, it's estimated that each Bonnie and Clyde weapon will bring in anywhere between $100,000 and $200,000 each.

"They were pretty famous in their moment and I think that's lasted through time," Bobby Livingston, vice president of RR Auction says.

Other items associated with the dastardly duo that Livingston's company will auction include a gold pocket watch that Clyde had on person when he died, and a cosmetics case Bonnie was using to carry lipstick, Coty face powder and a powder puff. The brown leatherette box was inside the Ford automobile the two were riding in when lawmen riddled their car with bullets on a Louisiana road.

Also up for auction is a letter that Clyde wrote to his brother 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.

FBI files say Bonnie and Clyde met in Texas in 1930 and have been traced to 13 murders and several robberies and burglaries by the time they died. Several members of the police were among the people killed by the couple.

The couple was raised to "folk hero" status as they traveled across America's Midwest and South, holding up banks and stores with other gang members. The two partially symbolized the frustration the American public felt during the depths of the Depression.

Texas Ranger Frank Hamer led the posse of six lawmen who carried out the ambush. Auction officials say authorities gifted Hamer the guns from the lovers' bodies as part of his compensation for the operation.

Auction officials said all the Bonnie and Clyde items are coming from the estate of Robert E. Davis, a private collector from Texas who acquired items Hamer had owned, along with items that came from the estate of Clyde's sister, Marie Barrow.

Jonathan Davis, whose book "Bonnie & Clyde & Marie: A Sister's Perspective on the Notorious Barrow Gang" who befriended Marie Barrow in the early 1990s is acting as an adviser for the auction.

� 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Keywords: Bonnie and Clyde, auction, guns, Depression, criminals

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