Al Capone's Gun 'Sweetheart,' Other Heirlooms Sell For $3 Million

CHICAGO — Even more than seven decades after his death, Al Capone is still raking in the cash. The Chicago Tribune reports that the gangster's family heirlooms — include Scarface's favorite gun — sold for more than $3 million at a Friday night auction.

Held at Witherell’s Auction House in Sacramento, California, the event drew nearly 1,000 bidders, including Author Avi Bash and Sacramento Kings owner Kevin Nagle, according to the Tribune.

Most of the bidders remain private, and the proceeds will go to Capone's three surviving granddaughters — despite outcry from victims' advocacy groups and others.

"The estate of Al Capone survives as an undisturbed time capsule," the auction house said. "When he passed in 1947 his widow, Mae Capone, moved into the guest quarters and their Palm Island mansion remained a shrine until she sold it in 1952. To that end the select heirlooms, offered through Witherell’s, passed from Mae Capone to their only child Sonny Capone and then to his daughters."

In addition to "Sweetheart" — the mob boss's favorite Colt .45, which sold for $860,000 plus a 21 percent buyer's premium — items up for auction included a diamond-encrusted pocket watch, initialed gold money clip, carved cigar humidor, family photos and a letter Capone mailed home from Alcatraz.

Capone served an 11-year sentence at the famed island prison in San Francisco Bay for tax evasion — the only crime for which he was ever convicted.

"This landmark event will no doubt go down as one of the most important celebrity auction’s in history," Witherell's said, calling the gangster "an American legend.

Capone's granddaughter Diane told the Associated Press that her grandfather carried the finely engraved, wood-handled pistol for "self-defense" and used it several times.

"[It] probably saved his life on a few occasions," she said.

RELATED: Al Capone's Favorite Gun, Other Items Auctioned By Granddaughters

Now 77 years old, Diane Capone said her infamous granddad was a loving, generous family man.

“He was a legendary figure," she told the AP. "I think his judgment comes from somebody other than me.”