Here’s What Al Capone’s Business Card Said He Did for a Living

Al Capone is one of the most famous gangsters of all time. And so, I was surprised to learn that he had business cards at all. Unless they were emerging directly from a coma and/or cave, you’d think anyone doing business with Al Capone would know exactly who he was. I don’t think he was glad-handing with upright sales associates at local conventions, either. 

But apparently, Capone did indeed carry business cards, and what they listed as his occupation is both interesting and, with context, pretty hilarious.

Obviously, you’re not going to want to have “organized criminal” printed on a nice eggshell rectangle. You might as well add “Exhibit A” on the next line, and part of what made Capone so famous was his elusiveness — before tax evasion finally caught up with him, of course, which is good to keep in mind next time you want to write off your entire house as a “home office.” You would also think that even if he did want the convenience of a business card, which is fair in the time before you could store someone’s number without a pen handy, simply the name “Al Capone” would have sufficed.

According to the straightforwardly named Al Capone: A Biography by Luciano Iorizzo, however, Capone did indeed have an occupation on said business cards. One that, if you don’t concern yourself with the actual amount of involvement Capone had in day-to-day operations, was technically true. 

While his burgeoning crime career was fast-developing in the bar/crime den known as the Four Deuces in Chicago, Capone purchased a business next door to serve as a cover: a secondhand furniture store. Perhaps to keep up appearances, and since his other job as a bartender and bouncer didn’t look as good in print, his business cards matched. 

Thus, if you were to have run into Capone during this period and swapped contact info with him, you would have received a business card enabling you to keep in touch with Al Capone, the famous used furniture dealer.