The "It's All About The Hunt" Story

The tintype of Bill the Kid playing croquet with his outlaw gang,
The Regulators.  The black dots are said to be sweat from
the photographer who was taking the photo and the dark
marks on the corners are said to be his fingerprints.

It was an ordinary day.  Just turned off the TV after watching the National Geographic documen- tary dealing with evidence that a second photograph of Billy the Kid exists.  Pretty neat show, narrated by Kevin Costner, that talks about a gentleman who paid $2 for a four-by-five-inch tintype, also known as a ferrotype, as well as two other photographs, at an antique shop in Fresno, California in 2010 and spent the next five years of his and his wife's lives trying to authenticate the historical and physical validity of the tintype.  

Randy Guijarro and his wife Linda as seen on the
National Geographic documentary.

Randy Guijarro may have one of the best deals ever made if his $2 find actually brings more than any other photograph in history.  The tintype was found in a "box of junk" he found at Fulton's Folly Antique Collective in Fresno, CA and after offering the only money in his pocket, which was accepted by the seller, he walked out a rich man.  About a week after his purchase he picked up the tintype, checked out the composition of the scene, examined it under a microscope and instantly recognized the notorious bandit.  

The only other known photograph, also
a tintype, of Billy the Kid. 

He called for his wife, who shares the same hobbies of her husband, and who found other members of the gang among the other faces in the tintype.  Those who have read this blog for some time probably realize that I am a big fan of photograph, having taught high school film photography and having a collection of Daguerrotypes, Ambrotypes and Tintypes of which Mr. Guijarro's prize find is the latter.  The documentary tells of his discovery which may possibly be only the second authenticated photograph of the outlaw Billy the Kid, whose name was Henry McCarty, but was also known as William Bonney.  The tintype shows Billy and his gang, The Regulators, playing a game of croquet.  Billy is leaning on a mallet in the tintype.  Billy the Kid is synonymous with the Wild West.  He hailed from New York, but led a rather brief life as a career outlaw in the west, allegedly killing 21 men before the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, Pat Garrett, gunned him down at the age of 22 in 1881.  

Randy, with an  enlargement of the tintype, compares the
photo to the surrounding area as he tries to find the location
where the photo was taken.  From National Geographic.

Randy and his wife Linda both spent the best part of the past five years, as well as the majority of their life savings, tracking down everything imaginable that would lead to the verification of the tintype they held.  They tracked down an authority on tintype photography who documented the metal in their tintype was from the 1870-1875 time frame.  

Superimposing Randy's tintype over the area that was deter-
mined to be the exact location where the picture was taken.

Another authority verified through facial recognition technology the fact that the faces in the photo were Billy and his gang, and another investigator told them about the recent introduction of croquet to the west and was able to determine the exact height of the figure in the tintype based on the length of the croquet mallet he was leaning upon.  A private investigator from Lincoln County, New Mexico was hired to help find the exact location of the photo.  After all the parts of the puzzle fell in place, and after nearly five years, Randy and Linda took the tintype, along with all their research and documentation, to Kagin's Inc, a California-based numismatic firm who eventually, after their own investigation, insured the tintype for $5 Million.  

Some of my collection.  These are both Daguerrotypes.

As of October 18th of this year Randy is negotiating a private sale of the tintype for the $5 Million.  If he sells it at that price, it will be one of the highest prices ever paid for a single photograph.  My only regret after viewing the documentary and reading numerous online stories about the discovery of the tintype ..... I wish that during all the years of my collecting of old time photographs I had been lucky enough to make a find as Randy did.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.