On this night 62 years ago, Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin slinked through the grates of the vents that came into their prison cells and executed the escape they had planned for seven months from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.
No automatic alarms sounded. The first manual check was failed as the prison guards at curfew mistook fake heads resting on their pillows as the men themselves, just as the inmates had planned.
Guards stationed outside didn't see the men come to the top of the prison roof and eventually down to the shore, thanks to the pitch black of the June night.
In the 30-year history of the prison (1934-1963), 36 men tried to escape and only three — Morris and the Anglin brothers — were never found.
The intrigue led to a book called "Escape from Alcatraz" in 1963 and a high-profile movie of the same name, starring Clint Eastwood, that followed in 1979, the same year the FBI ended the case and turned it over to the U.S. Marshals Service.
"The Rock" closed as a prison in March 1963, but Alcatraz Island remains open as a tourist attraction in San Francisco Bay Harbor.
With interest comes collectibility, but the only good collectible available of the three men is their "Wanted" posters and they are so rare, a set doesn't even come up once a year. In 2019, a pair of all three sold for $3,670 at R.R. Auctions. Three in worse condition, ironically, sold this week on eBay for $1,400.
The issue with "Wanted" posters is they were often regionally produced. There wasn't nationwide availability, because the suspect was technically wanted in a certain area. Second, none of these posters were distributed to the public. They were mailed to post offices and police stations, which had them up until a suspect was caught. They were then taken down and tossed.
The most collectible "Wanted" poster is one of the very first ones ever made: The reward poster for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and his conspirators, which, depending on printing and condition, have sold for as much as $275,000 each.
"They are just in such limited supply that it's hard to collect the posters more than in a one-off fashion," said Bobby Livingston, whose R.R. Auctions has sold many and will offer a third printing of the Booth poster auction in a September auction.
Other "Wanted" posters that could sell for more than $1,000 each are ones that feature Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Whitey Bulger, who served time in Alcatraz from 1959 to 1962. One that has not come to auction in recent history is D.B. Cooper, the man behind the only unsolved airplane skyjacking in American history. That poster would command a healthy premium.
While a makeshift life vest and a piece of a paddle found on Angel Island were often pointed to as evidence that the Alcatraz trio didn’t make it, recent studies suggest, based on historical current patterns, the men could have made it to shore that night if they left in between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, and those items would have washed up on Angel Island.
The intrigue has furthered their legend, but has left more potential collectors frustrated.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.