Auction Date:2012 Sep 30 @ 10:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS, in pencil, signed “John Dillinger #14395,” one page, 7.75 x 3.75, no date [but circa 1929–1933]. Letter written while in the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City, to prison assistant superintendent. H. W. Waymire. In full: “I am working in the shirt shop and the work is hard on my eyes and I would like to get transferred to the foundry #4 or Machine shop if possible. I will certainly appreciate it very much if you will do what you can for me.” Double matted and framed with a typed note stating Dillinger, “wants a transfer to the foundry from the shirt shop says the shirt shop is hard on his eyes,” an original 1934 US Justice Department wanted poster and a portrait of Dillinger holding a pistol and a Tommy gun, to an overall size of 28.5 x 14.25. Several vertical folds, one through a single letter of signature, two punch holes and a staple hole to top edge, and some scattered light soiling, otherwise fine condition.
In 1924, Dillinger was sentenced to 10-20 years in prison for his part in the assault and botched robbery of a grocery store owner in Mooresville, Indiana. While working in the shirt shop at Indiana State Prison, he befriended the men who would later become his notorious (and aptly named) ‘Shirt Shop Boys,’ including Handsome Harry Pierpont, Charles Makley, and John Hamilton. They passed their long days devising elaborate escape plans and dreaming up crimes they would commit upon their release. When paroled in 1933, Dillinger put their plans to action, beginning with the successful coordination of the rest of his gang’s escape and continuing with a series of violent robberies that made him Public Enemy #1. This request to transfer out of the shirt shop, if accepted, would have eliminated the hours that this gang of criminals spent together planning the crimes that would later dominate the headlines. Dillinger letters are nearly impossible to come by: this piece, with its extraordinary content, is the first we have ever offered.
Auction Location:
5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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