Thanks nickcarraway.
Posted on 11/18/2017 10:32:29 PM PST by nickcarraway
It looks like a North Carolina man is holding a priceless piece of New Mexico history.
Experts have verified a tintype picture bought for just dollars is that of Billy the Kid and the man who killed him, Sheriff Pat Garrett. It’s a find that could be worth millions.
A cool old picture of five men in the Old West went up for sale at a flea market in Ashville, North Carolina in 2011. It caught the attention of history buff Frank Abrams, who decided to spend the $10 to buy it. The picture sat up on a wall as a decoration for years.
Then in 2015, news broke of a newly verified photo of Billy the Kid playing croquet. It was one of only two of the famous outlaw known to exist, and it was worth $5 million. That’s when Abrams started researching Billy the Kid, and noticed a familiar character in his picture.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh, he looks like Pat Garrett,'” Abrams said.
If that was Pat Garrett, the Lincoln County Sheriff famous for killing Billy the Kid, who was that young man sitting to his right who looked eerily similar to Billy? Could it really be the famous outlaw who has spawned countless stories and become a New Mexico legend?
After months of analysis, facial recognition and other examination, experts say it is.
“It’s incredible… Five trips across the country, forensic experts, professors have looked at it, others have looked at it… It’s… I’m ecstatic. I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world. To find this is a privilege,” Abrams said.
“In the picture is Billy and Dirty Dave Rudabaugh captured with Billy, holding a revolver and one of the most notorious outlaws of the West,” Abrams explained.
Experts say further analysis of the picture revealed some writing that helped identify the characters, including Pat Garrett’s signature on his lapel and a date of Aug. 2, 1880.
That would have been before Billy’s arrest, and before his escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse when he murdered a deputy, urging the question: What was Pat Garrett doing posing with Billy and another outlaw, months before he would hunt him down and kill him?
It’s a mystery Abrams is determined to solve. In the meantime, what will become of the picture?
“People ask me all the time, what do you think it’s worth, what do you think it’s worth. I won’t put a price on it, quite frankly it’s priceless,” Abrams said.
Since the tintype is the only known picture of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett together, many experts expect it to be worth far more than the other picture of Billy.
A cool old picture of five men in the Old West went up for sale at a flea market in Ashville, North Carolina in 2011. It caught the attention of history buff Frank Abrams, who decided to spend the $10 to buy it.
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They should do a story about the person who sold it.
That was actually my first thought. 8>) But then it was always just their cheeks.
I hear that, and agree with your assessment. One of the reason journalism is dead as a door nail.
True that, but they were both still rivalries. 8>)
Liberty Devitto just kills it with his drumming on that one.
Is Dirty Dave holding a Schofield revolver?
There was zero depth to that story. It was almost idiotic.
It certainly left a lot of questions unanswered. Apparently they are not interested in the who, what, why where, & how’s of a story anymore. Either that or they were never taught, which could also be the case with our education system anymore.
Interesting.
Yep! LD certainly added dynamics and, on videos, he looked like a wild man...not unlike Keith Moon who I saw in Cincinnati on the Who tour before their Cincy “Death Concert”.
The late, great Phil Ramone produced & engineered “The Stranger” - his first for Billy Joel. The sound quality was VERY good and typical of his engineering.
He also received a Grammy for producing Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy...”.
Journalists think everyone has the attention span of a gnat. So they write like we are third graders.
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So true. Journalists are taught to write to the lowest common denominator, hence the motto “write to Jethro.”
I remember back around 1970, some man bought an old photograph and tried to pass it off as LINCOLN on a bad day. I believe the writeup was in LIFE or LOOK or one of those magazines.
I thought serious doubt had been cast on the croquet photo (the figures were all very small).
And the HPD forensics specialist also made a bum call “authenticating” a purported Robert Johnson bar photo (that looked out of era).
https://truewestmagazine.com/the-croquet-kid/
http://www.thecountryblues.com/op-ed/another-robert-johnson-photo-debunked/
The guy in the back appears to be a much older man than Billy the Kid, has a higher hairline, smaller right ear and a different jaw.
It used to be newspapers wrote on a 4th grade level so more readers could understand the articles. Perhaps this shows the difference between today’s 4th graders and those from 50 years ago.
Kristofferson as Billy and Coburn as Pat.
All I know is it sold for big bucks. Not sure how anyone can disprove it now even if it isn't him. But this picture of him does not really look like the other picture with him playing crochet.
Thanks nickcarraway.
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