Local Man Buys Dillinger "Death Mask" For $3,660

By Anna Deem in News on Nov 21, 2010 6:45PM

Although it may be 76 years since John Dillinger was gunned down in front of the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park, collectors are still just as eager to get their hands on Dillinger collectables. Last Thursday, Chicago businessman Ed Hirschland bid on and won Dillinger's "death mask," a cast of the infamous bank robber's face made by amateur criminologist Kenneth "Doc" Coffman, who somehow got past Cook County morgue guards and poured plaster on Dillinger's face to make the cast. Hirschland bought it for $3,000--with an additional $660 in fees--at an auction held by Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, 1338 W. Lake.

"I'm a Chicago afficionado," said Hirschland, president of the Landhart Corp. consulting firm, to the Chicago Sun-Times. "One of the areas that's so interesting about Chicago is crime. This is such an incredible crime item." Besides the Dillinger mask, Coffman also created masks of Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Lester J. Gillis, also known as "Baby Face" Nelson. After Coffman's death in 1983, his wife disliked the masks so much that she destroyed them. However, she kept the Dillinger mask, figuring it would be worth something someday, said collector Jim Conway to the Sun-Times, who bought the mask at an earlier auction in Wisconsin.