?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 900 - $ 1,200
(COSA NOSTRA) Mug shot of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who is considered the father of modern American organized crime. Silver print, 2 3/4x4 3/4 inches (6.9x12 cm.), with the Police Department of New York hand stamp and Luciano's particulars (his vocation is listed as "chaffeur") on verso. 1931
From the files of Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Burton Turkus, who prosecuted Murder Inc. cases; to historian and collector John Binder.
Lucky Luciano was a New York-based wise guy whose domination of the lucrative underworld exceeded that of Al Capone. In 1931, he founded what today would be characterized as the "Cosa Nostra" by supplanting its Sicilian predecessor. He organized a national crime syndicate which was composed of Jewish as well as Italian gangsters who controlled bootlegging, prostitution, narcotics, gambling, loan-sharking and labor rackets.
