A gangster boss’s ill-gotten gains have gotten another big pay day with the sale of an Al Capone-owned watch for $95,250 in New York this week.
The Patek Philippe watch is from a brand still treasured by watch connoisseurs and big spenders today.
It is a pocket watch, further spruced up by the Chicago mob boss with a platinum case and initials in diamonds on the back.
New York-born Capone made a fortune as the leader of the Outfit, Chicago’s pre-eminent Mafia gang. They ran sex work, gambling and most-of-all bootleg alcohol operations.
And they killed large numbers of people, most notoriuosly in the St Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Capone after an arrest in Florida, a second home in the sun away from his base in Chicago. He was Public Enemy Number One, but was raking in illicit cash.
Capone was not shy about his success. He regularly made public shows of generosity in Chicago’s working-class communities. He himself lived large, his flashy image setting the tone for decades of media and movie portrayals of Mafiosa.
The watch was made around 1919, and was sold by Sotheby’s with the acknowledgment that it had suffered some damage over the years. “This watch has more than a few stories it could tell,” they said.
The watch sold within its estimate range of $80,000 to $160,000 to make $95,250.
The most valuable items at the sale on June 10 were all by the same maker.
A Patek Philippe Reference 2499 ‘Second Series’ watch made in 1957 sold for $4.32 million.
A Patek Philippe Reference 2524/1 sold by Gübelin realised over $1.6 million.
Capone is also a collectible figure; a criminal and a celebrity. A 2021 sale raised over $3 million in total. Just last month a single, signed photograph made more than $60,000 at auction.
