{"id":383,"date":"2009-07-29T13:33:26","date_gmt":"2009-07-29T17:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=383"},"modified":"2009-07-29T13:33:26","modified_gmt":"2009-07-29T17:33:26","slug":"dillinger-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/dillinger-dementia\/","title":{"rendered":"DILLINGER DEMENTIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scroll down a bit, and you\u2019ll find that a while back we commented on the Leslie Hindman auction in Chicago of what they\u2019re calling \u201cThe Gun That Killed Dillinger.\u201d<\/a> Only trouble is, it belonged to an East Chicago lawman who was across the street from the Biograph Theater on the sweltering 1934 night when three Federal agents shot down Public Enemy Number One.\u00a0 Captain Timothy O\u2019Neal, by all official accounts, never fired his gun that night.<\/p>\n

We got some interesting comments on it (see that entry, below), including a polite response from the auction house itself<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, proving that P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute, O\u2019Neal\u2019s gun went under the auctioneer\u2019s hammer for a whopping $36,400 yesterday.\u00a0 This LINK <\/a>from the Chicago Sun-Times indicated that reporters in the Windy City apparently don\u2019t research their stories much, either.<\/p>\n

The popular Johnny Depp movie has apparently stirred a huge interest in Dillinger 75 years after his death.\u00a0 A few days ago, a gun that documentably actually WAS possessed by John Dillinger went for over 96 grand in an auction elsewhere.\u00a0 It was a double-barrel .41 caliber Remington derringer, a frontier-style pocket pistol that was obsolete even then, but still popular in the Thirties for pocket carry because it spat large caliber bullets, if only two of them.\u00a0 It was taken from Dillinger during one of his arrests.\u00a0 He had been carrying it tucked in his sock as a backup gun.<\/p>\n

In the auction of the O\u2019Neal Colt, a letter written by Dillinger to his niece from jail went to a private collector for what the Sun-Times called \u201ca shocking $60,400 winning bid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, heck, I just can\u2019t be an old curmudgeon about this stuff anymore.\u00a0 It\u2019s time I got into the spirit of things.<\/p>\n

So, tell ya what: I\u2019ll auction off a Colt Army Special almost exactly like Captain O\u2019Neal\u2019s, out of my own collection. We can start the bidding at, oh, a mere $30,000.\u00a0 His had a five-inch barrel, and mine is a four-inch and looks to be in better shape.\u00a0 And they have at least three things in common.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re both original Colt Army Special revolvers correct to their period, right down to the gutta percha grips.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re both chambered for the .38 Special cartridge. (And mine\u2019s still in perfect working order, and surprisingly accurate.)<\/p>\n

And, to the best of my knowledge, neither one was ever fired at John Dillinger.<\/p>\n

Yet another Colt Army Special that didn\u2019t kill John Dillinger<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"img_4703\"<\/p>\n

\"img_4698\"<\/p>\n

\"img_4701\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scroll down a bit, and you\u2019ll find that a while back we commented on the Leslie Hindman auction in Chicago of what they\u2019re calling \u201cThe Gun That Killed Dillinger.\u201d Only trouble is, it belonged to an East Chicago lawman who was across the street from the Biograph Theater on the sweltering 1934 night when three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}