Eighty years after their Depression-era robbery and murder spree captivated America, Bonnie and Clyde continue to fascinate criminologists and historians.

Now a Missouri family is selling a pair of rare weapons believed to have been seized from the outlaw couple’s Joplin hideout in 1933.

The weapons are owned by the great-grandchildren of a Tulsa, Oklahoma, detective who was given the guns by a police officer involved in the April 13, 1933 raid.

The .45-calibre fully automatic Thompson sub-machine gun – better known as a Tommy gun – and 1897 Winchester 12-gauge shotgun, had spent the past 40 years in relative historical obscurity, stored in a Springfield police museum that did not acknowledge the cache’s pop-culture significance.

“People can’t get enough of Bonnie and Clyde,” said Robert Mayo, a Kansas City auctioneer handling the January 21 sale for the descendants of Mark Lairmore. “We’re fascinated by people who do bad things”.

One of the owners, a great-grandson also named Mark Lairmore, said the family wanted to turn the weapons over to “someone with an appreciation of antique guns and the history behind these guns”.

The original Mark Lairmore’s son and grandson had both died, severing any sentimental connection to the items, he said.

Two law enforcement officers died during a shootout at the Joplin apartment where the couple and members of their gang were hiding, but all the members of the Clyde Barrow gang escaped.

The police raid also yielded a camera that produced widely distributed photos of the criminal lovebirds, cementing the image of Bonnie Parker as Barrow’s cigar-chomping, gun-toting moll. Those photos, first published in the Joplin Globe newspaper, were the first public depictions of the couple.

Both were killed little more than a year later by pursuing police in rural Louisiana.

Mr Mayo said the sellers had not set a minimum bid and declined to estimate how much money the guns might bring at auction in Kansas City.