Not Billy No Mates

After all the fuss created by the sale of the tin plate image of William H Bonney for $2.3m (then £1.4m) at a Denver auction ....

Billy With Mates

.... the hunt was on for more such pictures. The attribution of an image of the said Mr Bonney, playing crotchet, was confirmed by many experts earlier this year .... its valued at $5m!

Billy The Kid Gets $2.3m

In his biggest ever score, 'Billy The Kid' finally made a big hit of $2.3m .... many times more than all the money he took by crime (which was probably only a few thousand dollars in total).

Sadly for him, this wasn't in his lifetime, and it was only when his likeness on a tintype photograph taken in 1879/80 at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, was sold at the specialist Brian Lebel's Annual Old West Show & Auction that such a large sum was realised.


Billy The Kidd 1879

 Better late than never, eh, Billy?

For the purposes of this blog I tidied up the picture, which in truth is actually rather tatty, but in case you want to see the original and the full story of the sale its on this link.

NB: That's not a 'gunman's stare', its a result of the magnesium powder (flash powder) used to light the subject when taking their pictures in those days.