About the Piece
Prohibition pushed the liquor trade underground without ending America’s appetite for it. Bootlegging became enormously profitable, and in Chicago no figure became more inseparable from that world than Al Capone. His organization made fortunes from illegal liquor and defended those interests through violence, while Capone himself cultivated an unusually public image. The scars across his face became part of it, giving rise to the nickname he hated but never escaped: Scarface.
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Spectres designed the statuette around the business behind the legend: liquor, money and violence. Capone raises a drink in one hand and a Thompson submachine gun in the other, while barrels, bottles and stacks of cash build the world beneath him. The Thompson became one of the defining weapons of Prohibition-era gang violence, while the violin case reflects the use of instrument cases to conceal firearms during the period.
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The scene keeps Capone inseparable from the world that made him famous. His tailored suit, cigar and raised glass carry the swagger of the public persona, while the liquor, cash and weapons around him expose the machinery behind it. As a freestanding statuette, the piece condenses Prohibition Chicago into one object: the illegal product, the money it generated, the violence that protected it, and the man who became its most recognizable face.
Specifications
What’s Included
- Individually numbered Spectres piece
- Matching numbered Certificate of Authenticity with product specifications
- Custom-designed Spectres presentation box
Every Spectres piece carries the Ghost mint mark.
How is this a coin?
- A coin is defined by its official issuance, not by its physical shape. This piece is formally issued as legal tender by a sovereign issuing authority, with an official denomination and year of issue.
- Money and coinage have also taken unconventional forms throughout history, including ancient Chinese knife- and spade-shaped money. Spectres continues that idea in modern legal tender, where a coin may be round, shaped, functional, sculptural or fully three-dimensional.
