Description
Von Frantzius, P c1928 Gun and Sport Catalog- Chicago, Ill.
99 pages, about 11" x 8", glossy soft-cover in full color. New re-print restored and digitally enhanced from a nice original. Printed on high quality 20# 97 bright acid free paper. Fully Illustrated.
Peter von Frantzius (sometimes Frantizius) (died April 6, 1968) was a Chicago businessman and arms dealer to the Chicago underworld during Prohibition, later dubbed by the press as "The Armorer of Gangland". An almost exclusive supplier of the Chicago Outfit (although often selling to rival gangs such as the North Side Mob), he was one of the first to supply "Tommy" submachine guns and other specialized weaponry connected to countless gangland slayings during the bootleg wars of the 1920s, including the murder of Brooklyn mobster Frankie Yale in 1928, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929 and the 1930 gangland murder of Chicago journalist Jake Lingle. On one occasion, when asked by authorities to explain the sale of six machine guns to known organized crime figures, Frantzius answered before a coroner’s jury that he had assumed the weapons were for the use of the Mexican government to use against revolutionaries. Despite his connections to organized crime, Frantzius was never prosecuted against and continued to operate his sporting goods business Sports, Inc. until his death on April 6, 1968. (From Wikipedia)
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