^^^ Thanks for the confidence but I know very little about the NY Black Hand. It seems to me that the Black Handers were independent crimainals and extortionists with no ties to the Mafia. Some of them later joined the Mafia. Manfredi "Al" Mineo, the future boss of what later became the Gambino Family, comes to mind. The Mafia extorted too, but I doubt very much that they would use letters, signed with a black hand at the bottom, to scare shopkeepers into paying protection money. There was no need for that.