Bonnie and Clyde guns up for sale in New Hampshire

The guns used by gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who died in a hail of police bullets in 1934, are up for auction.

The guns form part of the RR Auction, entitled American Gangsters, Outlaws and Lawmen, taking place in New Hampshire on Sunday.

Bonnie and Clyde’s exploits during the Great Depression earned them a place in American folklore.

Al Capone and Baby Face Nelson items are among others up for sale.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow gained notoriety for a string of bank robberies before law enforcement officers ambushed them in Louisiana on 23 May 1934.

Up for sale are many lots, including items taken from the car in which the couple died, Bonnie Parker’s cosmetics case and a host of photographs.

But the bidding is sure to focus on Bonnie Parker’s Colt Detective Special .38 revolver and Clyde Barrow’s 1911 Army Colt .45 pistol, both of which have estimates of $150,000 to $300,000.

Retired history professor ER Milner says it is clear why the couple is still so intriguing.

“Americans and, I think, most people love a lover… and here [were] these young people in the midst of the worst depression in the history of the world striking a blow for what they thought was right – and loving one another.

“It was almost a Shakespearean tragedy on a dusty road in Louisiana.”

The notorious prohibition gangster Al Capone’s pistol and a love song about his wife, entitled Madonna Mia, which he wrote while imprisoned in Alcatraz, are also up for grabs.

So is a press card signed by his nemesis, the prohibition era investigator Eliot Ness.

A Baby Face Nelson revolver has an estimate of $40,000 to $50,000.