History is messy. It’s usually written by the winners, but in the case of the American West, it was often written by the guys selling the most dime novels. If you do a quick search for a picture of billy the kid, you'll likely stumble upon a sea of grainy, sepia-toned faces. Every few years, someone "discovers" a new one in a thrift store or a family attic. The headlines go wild. Values are estimated in the millions. But honestly? Most of them are just old photos of random 19th-century dudes who happen to own a hat and a scowl.
As of early 2026, the world of Western history is still wrestling with the same tension: the gap between what we want to believe and what we can actually prove.
For over a century, there was exactly one. Just one authenticated image. It’s a tiny, battered piece of metal known as a tintype. It’s not a masterpiece. It shows a young man who looks, frankly, a bit disheveled. He’s got a lopsided hat, a bulky sweater, and a gaze that looks more exhausted than menacing. This is the "Upham tintype," and it’s the bedrock of everything we think we know about the face of Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney.
The $2.3 Million Tintype Explained
In 2011, billionaire William Koch dropped $2.3 million on that single, small image. Why? Because provenance is everything. This wasn't just found in a random box; it had a paper trail. Billy himself gave the photo to his pal Dan Dedrick. It stayed in the Dedrick (and later Upham) family for generations.
When you look at this picture of billy the kid, you’re seeing him at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, around 1879 or 1880. He’s standing there with a Winchester carbine and a Colt revolver on his hip.
The Left-Handed Myth
Here is where things get weird. For decades, everyone thought Billy was a "lefty." Why? Because in that famous photo, his holster is on his left side. Paul Newman even starred in a movie called The Left Handed Gun.
👉 See also: Sleeping With Your Neighbor: Why It Is More Complicated Than You Think
But it was all a technical glitch.
Tintypes are mirror images. Basically, the camera of the 1800s worked like a selfie camera that doesn't flip the image back. If you look at the Winchester he’s holding, the loading gate is on the wrong side. When you flip the photo to the "correct" orientation, the gun is right, and the holster moves to his right hip. He was a righty. One small quirk of 19th-century photography accidentally created a hundred years of mythology.
The Croquet Controversy: $2 or $5 Million?
Then came 2015. A collector named Randy Guijarro bought a box of old photos at a junk shop in Fresno for two bucks. One of them showed a group of people playing croquet in front of a wooden building. Guijarro became convinced that the blurry figure leaning on a mallet was the Kid.
National Geographic even made a documentary about it. They used facial recognition, looked at the geography of New Mexico, and even found the ruins of the building in the photo. They valued it at $5 million.
But talk to most serious historians, like the folks at True West Magazine, and they’ll roll their eyes. Critics point out that the "facial recognition" is shaky on such a low-res image. They argue the clothing doesn't quite match the region or the timeframe. While it’s a fun story, the "Croquet Kid" remains a point of massive debate. To this day, many in the academic community refuse to accept it as an authentic picture of billy the kid.
✨ Don't miss: At Home French Manicure: Why Yours Looks Cheap and How to Fix It
The Frank Abrams Discovery (The Friend and the Foe)
Not long after the croquet drama, a lawyer named Frank Abrams realized he might have something even bigger. He’d bought a $10 tintype at a flea market in North Carolina back in 2011. After watching the Nat Geo special, he took a closer look at his photo.
It shows five men. Abrams claims one is Billy the Kid and the other is Pat Garrett—the man who would eventually hunt him down and kill him.
If true, it’s the Holy Grail. It would show the two men back when they were supposedly "gambling buddies" before the Lincoln County War turned them into mortal enemies. Experts have looked at the handwriting on the back and the facial features, and while it has more support than most "finds," it still lacks that ironclad, birth-to-death chain of custody that collectors like Koch demand.
Why Authentication is So Hard
- Mass Production: Millions of tintypes were made. Everyone wore similar hats.
- Facial Features: Most 19th-century men were thin, had bad teeth, and wore vests.
- Wishful Thinking: If you find a $2 photo and think it’s worth $2 million, your brain will find reasons to believe it.
How to Spot a Fake "Billy"
If you’re ever digging through an old trunk and see a face that looks familiar, don't quit your day job just yet. Genuine Western outlaws rarely sat for portraits. They were busy running from the law.
When people try to verify a picture of billy the kid, they look for "the sweater." The Upham tintype shows him in a very specific, thick-knit cardigan. Many fakes try to mimic this. They also look for his "overbite." Billy was known for having prominent front teeth, a detail often lost in blurry fakes.
🔗 Read more: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Menu: Why You’re Probably Ordering Wrong
But honestly? Unless there is a letter from 1881 saying, "Here is a photo Billy gave me," it’s probably just a guy named Jed from Ohio.
What This Tells Us About the Outlaw
The obsession with these photos isn't really about the silver halides on a metal plate. It's about trying to humanize a ghost. We want to look into the eyes of the man who supposedly killed 21 people (though history says it was likely closer to nine).
We want to see if he looks like a cold-blooded killer or just a scared kid caught in a corporate land war. The Upham photo shows a boy. He looks scrawny. He doesn't look like a movie star. He looks like a drifter who hasn't had a good meal in a month. That’s the reality of the Old West—it was dirty, hungry, and decidedly un-glamorous.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you're fascinated by the visual history of the American frontier, here is how you can engage with it without getting scammed by the next "big find":
- Visit the Billy the Kid Museum: Head to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Seeing the actual landscape where these photos were taken (and where he died) provides more context than any digital scan.
- Study Tintype Mechanics: Understanding how light hits a metal plate and why images are reversed helps you spot why the "left-handed" myth started.
- Check the Provenance: If a photo is for sale, look for the "chain of custody." If it doesn't have a documented history of ownership that goes back at least 100 years, be extremely skeptical.
- Read the Experts: Follow historians like Corey Recko or the archives at the New Mexico State Records Center. They are the ones who actually do the grueling work of debunking the "find of the century" every six months.
The search for the "next" picture of billy the kid will never end. The lure of a $5 million scrap of metal is just too strong. But for now, the scruffy kid with the lopsided hat remains the only face we can truly call his own.
To truly understand the Kid, you have to look past the myths and focus on the cold, hard evidence found in that 1880 tintype. Study the orientation of the rifle's loading gate and the specific knit pattern of his sweater. These tiny details are the only things separating a multi-million dollar piece of history from a common Victorian souvenir. Use the digitized archives of the Library of Congress to compare authentic 1870s New Mexico photography with modern "discoveries" to train your eye for genuine frontier artifacts.