Gallery of History - Auctioneer of Historical Documents

Click on Image To Enlarge

autographs

Document 261610

JACK "LEGS" DIAMOND. Rare Greeting Card signed: "Mr &/Mrs/Jack Diamond" on the right with ANS: "Jack" on the left, 7½x2½. Inside facing pages of Thanksgiving Day card bearing printed greeting on right: "After all, the simple thing/Seems quite the best to say;/So I'll send a little greeting/For a glad Thanksgiving Day" and blank area on the left. The 3¾x2½ cover ("For Your/Thanksgiving") has been detached from the message portion. The signed note, in full: "Many Thanks/To you/and the/family for/your kind treatment/of the Mrs." Gambler and racketeer Arnold Rothstein taught Legs Diamond everything there was to know about the narcotics racket, molding him into an expert heroin importer. Soon others began following the dope trail that Rothstein had blazed and started to hedge in on his territory. When Rothstein refused to surrender to rivals, they took it by force. One of those takers was Legs Diamond, alleged to have participated in the murder of Rothstein at a New York card game in 1928. Legs Diamond laid claim to Rothstein's European drug smuggling operation, import routes and contacts. Prohibition had made Diamond rich, but all of his cash was tied up in a street war for control of the Manhattan bootleg beer outlets. On trial for the attempted murder of a competitor, he was found not guilty. That night, Diamond went out with friends to celebrate. He returned to his room in an Albany, New York boarding house in the early morning hours of December 17, 1931. A half hour later, two well-dressed men entered Diamond's room and pumped three .38 slugs into his head at point-blank range, instantly killing him. Lightly creased. 2 pinhead-size holes at mid-vertical fold from removal of cover, which had been attached with ribbon (present on cover portion). ¾-inch diagonal tear at blank area. Overall, fine condition. Matted with two newspaper headlines (one is torn at upper left edge and lower left corner) and a captioned newspaper photograph. Framed, not in the Gallery of History style: 18¼x26.

SEE IF DOCUMENT 261610 IS FOR SALE RIGHT NOW!!

This document was available for sale in a previous auction. It may or may not be currently available for sale. It is also highly likely that we have more of this personality available for sale either in our archives or on our direct purchase website www.historyforsale.com.

For direct purchase information, call 1-800-GALLERY (1-800-425-5379) Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm Pacific Time or email inquires to sales@galleryofhistory.com. RIGHT NOW YOU CAN BID ON A SIMILAR ITEM IN OUR CURRENT AUCTION!

Autograph Archive Index