A California buyer paid $2 for a photo believed to show Billy the Kid in 2015; experts authenticated it and valued the rare image at up to $5 million

A photograph bought for $2 at a California antique shop turned out to be a possible multimillion-dollar piece of Wild West history. The image shows outlaw Billy the Kid playing croquet with members of his gang in 1878. Randy Guijarro spent years trying to prove the photograph was genuine. Experts eventually authenticated it as the second confirmed photograph of Billy the Kid placing its value at $5 million.

The discovery drew attention from historians, collectors and news outlets including The Guardian, ABC and Artnet News. It also offered a glimpse of a man usually remembered for his violent life, as an outlaw.

How a $2 antique shop find became a $5 million photograph

Guijarro bought the small, 4-by-5-inch tintype in 2010 at Fulton’s Folly Antique Collective in Fresno, California. He was driving home from work when he stopped at the shop and came across boxes of old photographs.

Two men were clearing out a storage space and wanted to get rid of the items. Guijarro selected three photographs and paid $2 for them, spending all the money he had in his pocket.

At first, he simply liked the way the croquet photograph looked. It was about a week later, when he examined it under a microscope at home, that he began to suspect one of the men in the picture was Billy the Kid, whose real name was Henry McCarty.

“It was the hat, the stance, him leaning on a croquet stick. I thought, my lord, it’s Billy the Kid.”

Guijarro shared his discovery with his wife, Linda, who began researching the other people in the photograph. She found images of Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre that appeared to match two of the men in the croquet scene.

The couple then spent years trying to establish whether the photograph really showed Billy the Kid and members of his gang, known as the Lincoln County Regulators.

The process was far from straightforward. Guijarro said scepticism and false leads made the search difficult, leaving the couple uncertain at times about whom to trust.




“There were highs and lows. It was a bit of a lonely journey. This picture was almost Twilight Zone-ish. Too good to be true.”

Experts traced the image to New Mexico

Guijarro eventually brought the photograph to Kagin’s Inc., a California firm that specialises in Western Americana and rare coins. The company worked with historians, collectors, facial recognition experts and other specialists to investigate the image. According to Kagin’s, researchers identified all 18 people shown in the photograph. They also worked to establish where the scene had taken place, tracing it to a schoolhouse in Chaves County, New Mexico, whose remains were excavated.

Don Kagin, the company's president and owner, said Guijarro had approached the firm about a year before the final authentication. Guijarro believed the photograph was genuine. He had spent considerable time gathering evidence to support his claim.

The team then focused on confirming the exact location. David McCarthy, a senior numismatist at Kagin’s, travelled to New Mexico to investigate the terrain and building shown in the image.

The building was found to be about a 15-minute walk from the home of John Tunstall, Billy the Kid’s mentor. McCarthy also noted that Tunstall, a British man, had written in his diary about regularly playing croquet with friends. The evidence helped strengthen the case for the photograph's authenticity. “[We] nailed exactly not only the terrain, but the building [in the image],” Kagin said. “That really nailed it.” McCarthy described the moment as an exciting discovery.

“We have these moments of discovery every once in a while,” he said. “You get goosebumps.” He said Billy the Kid's posture and expression had caught his attention when he first saw the image. “The way he held his body in the photo, [a] sort of confident slouch,” McCarthy said. “[He's] facing the camera, dead on, with a grin on his face.”

A different side of Billy the Kid

Billy the Kid became one of the most famous outlaws of the American West. Born Henry McCarty in New York City, he moved west and became involved in crime and New Mexico's Lincoln County War. Accounts of his life differ on how many people he killed. Some estimates put the number at nine, while others suggest as many as 21 or more. He was killed in 1881 at the age of 21. The newly authenticated photograph shows a quieter scene. Taken in the late summer of 1878, it reportedly captures Billy the Kid and the Regulators playing croquet alongside friends, family and romantic partners. Researchers believe the gathering took place after a wedding, about a month after the gang's involvement in the Lincoln County War.

McCarthy said the image offers a more personal view of the outlaw. “Billy the Kid is incredibly famous,” McCarthy said. “[But] he wasn't shooting people all the time. He had friends he cared about. He had women he chased. It (the photograph) opens up the idea about the humanity of a character like Billy the Kid.” Kagin also told ABC News that the photograph was especially interesting because it showed a slice of everyday life rather than the outlaw posing with a weapon.

The only other confirmed photograph of Billy the Kid is a portrait taken in New Mexico in 1880. In that image, he wears a black hat and has a Colt pistol in a holster. Private collector William Koch bought the portrait for $2.3 million in 2010, according to the supplied reports. Kagin's appraised and insured Guijarro's photograph for $5 million and sought a private buyer. The image and the lengthy effort to authenticate it were also featured in a National Geographic documentary narrated by Kevin Costner.

Guijarro told The Guardian that he and Linda hoped to use some of the proceeds to pay debts, help friends and relatives, buy a new vehicle and fund further searches for historical objects. “I hope this prompts others out there to look into trunks and attics because there are so many lost treasures out there,” Guijarro told the newspaper. He added, “The hunt is a really grand thing.”