Lincoln New Mexico

Billy the Kid photo expected to fetch £190000 at auction

The picture was likely taken by a travelling photographer outside a saloon in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in late 1879 or early 1880, long before the Kid became a legendary figure in American Western lore.

Myths continue to swirl around the gunslinger, who was born Henry McCarty but known in New Mexico as William Bonney and reputed to have killed 21 men.

What is known is that Bonney was shot dead at age 22 by Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881, months after a daring jailbreak in which the outlaw reportedly killed two deputies.

The Kid had been awaiting execution for the murder of another lawman, William Brady, in 1878, following the so-called Lincoln County War, a series of bloody skirmishes among New Mexico cattle barons.

Mr Lebel is selling the photo on consignment for the Upham family of California, whose ancestor, Dan Dedrick, was given the photo by a fellow cattle rustler, Bonney himself.

The Uphams contacted Mr Lebel late last year, saying they were willing to part with the famous photo.

The family would like to see it go to a museum but acknowledged the possibility that it could end up with a foreign collector.

He said he expects the photo to fetch a minimum of $300,000 to $400,000.

Mr Lebel said he contacted the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery to gauge interest there but does not know whether the Smithsonian will make a bid for the photo.

Other rare items from the American frontier up for bid at the auction include a hand-drawn banner from William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's Wild West Show, autographed by Cody and other members of the troupe, including sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

It is valued at between $5,000 and $8,000.

But Billy the Kid's tintype is clearly the centrepiece of the auction, as public fascination for the outlaw has remained unabated in the 130 years since his death.

Last December, outgoing New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson declined to grant a posthumous pardon to Bonney .

"You know the romanticism appealed to me to issue a pardon, but the facts and the evidence did not support it," Mr Richardson said.

Rare Billy the Kid photo to go on auction block | The Raw Story

SANTA FE, New Mexico — A photograph of a smirking Billy the Kid, taken outside a New Mexico saloon near to where the famed outlaw was shot dead, could fetch up to $1 million at an auction on Saturday.

The two-by-three-inch (five-by-eight-centimeter) tintype is the only known adult portrait of the Wild West gunslinger who variously went by William Bonney, Henry Antrim, Henry McCarty or just "the Kid."

It has also been one of the most commonly reproduced images of the outlaw since it appeared in Sheriff Pat Garrett's book on how he tracked down and killed the Kid in 1881.

"This is it -- the only one," said Brian Lebel, auctioneer for the 22nd annual Old West Show and Auction to be held in Denver, Colorado.

"We'll have over 500 (people) in the audience. We have eight telephone lines and we have three different Internet hookups, so people can bid live online with real-time bidding (and) with a camera, so you can see the auctioneer."

The unidentified photographer originally made four identical tintypes, but the other three have been lost.

The one remaining tintype is owned by brothers Stephen and Art Upham of California and Arizona, who last displayed it publicly in a museum in Lincoln, New Mexico, in the mid-1980s.

It has been sealed in a nitrogen-filled envelope and kept in a safety deposit box since then, Lebel said.

Billy the Kid's jawline appears asymmetrical in the photograph, possibly because he made a face or moved his head during the long exposure time.

The image is smeared across the hips -- apparently from the gunslinger stuffing the tintype into his pocket before it dried.

For years, Billy the Kid was thought to be left-handed because the tintype shows him wearing a holster on his left side, inspiring the 1958 film, "The Left-Handed Gun."

In fact, the holster was on his right side, and only appears to be on the left because tintype photography creates a mirror image of the subject.

Lebel plans to start the bidding on Saturday at $150,000, half of what he expects to be the minimum sale price of $300,000.

But Western photography collector Bob McCubbin of Santa Fe, who plans to attend the auction, expects bids to go as high as $1 million (700,000 euros).

"This is the Holy Grail of photography," McCubbin said. "I cannot think of another photograph in the entire world that is as famous as this.

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