(Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Old West Show & Auction)
BY TRACY PFEIFFER
ANCHOR JENNIFER MECKLES
You're watching multisource entertainment news analysis from Newsy.
It’s known as the only authentic image of notorious outlaw Billy the Kid -- and it sold for $2.3 million.
ANCHOR:“Denver’s Old West Show and Auction had estimated the photo would bring somewhere between three and $400,000, but -- got a lot more than that. Bids quickly shot up within the first two minutes. The winning bidder was billionaire William Koch.” (KING)
The BBC reports -- it is believed the photo was taken in New Mexico -- an area where Billy the Kid spent time running from authorities. (Image: Wikimedia Commons/Old West Show & Auction)
“He is widely thought to have killed 21 people, although some sources put the figure as high as 27. Billy the Kid was captured and sentenced to hang for the 1878 murder of a county sheriff. He then escaped, only to be hunted down and killed by Sheriff Patrick Floyd Garrett on 14 July 1881.”
Reports say Billy the Kid handed off the portrait to a man named Dan Dedrick -- and it has been passed down through his descendants, the Uphams.
“It has only been publicly displayed during the 1980s at a museum in Lincoln County, N.M. Tintypes were an early form of photography that used metal plates. They are reverse images, and the Billy the Kid tintype led to the mistaken belief that the gunman was a lefty.”(New York Daily News)
And in an interesting twist -- if the auction winner’s name -- Koch -- sounds familiar, a writer for The New Mexican explains way.
“Two of Koch's brothers, fellow billionaires Charles and David Koch, are politically active members of an oil-and-gas family who have been in the news for funding various conservative Republican candidates and anti-union campaigns. However, William Koch, who reportedly has had some differences with those brothers, is perhaps best known for winning the America's Cup yachting competition in 1992.”
William Koch says he plans on letting some museums display the portrait -- after which he will quote- “just enjoy” it.
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