He Paid Only $2 for The Old Picture at a Flea Market.
The man who discovered a valuable and rare photograph of Billy the Kid playing croquet has some advice for those who want to find treasure: go disturb.
On Monday, Randy Guijarro told the Guardian “Because so many treasures have been lost, I hope this inspires others to dig through their trunks and attics.”
The 45-inch photograph was taken in 1878, and a small detail shows Billy the Kid playing croquet on the left.
A $2 find at a thrift store turned into a million-dollar croquet picture of Billy the Kid.
In 2010, Guijarro went to an antique store in Fresno, California, and bought a four-by-five-inch pewter type and two other images from a cardboard box for $2. At the moment, it is worth millions of dollars.
According to the telecommunications technician and his wife, Linda, they intend to use a portion of the earnings to fund additional travel.
“We might benefit from a new car.”
We would like to look for parts of history that have been forgotten, both in the United States and around the world.
Going on adventures is fun for us. The hunt is an absolutely magnificent occasion.
He described Henry McCarty, more commonly referred to as Billy the Kid in Western tales, As a man leaning on a croquet mallet with his group of regulators, who were studying the sport in New Mexico in 1878 in response to a picture of a man. below using a microscope at home.
The find is worth approximately $5 million, making it only the second confirmed photo of the criminal.
Kevin Costner narrated Sunday’s National Geographic program, which documented the five-year forensic and historical odyssey to prove it.
“It was phenomenal.” “ We had a really hard time being there, Guijarro, 54, said. We hope you’ve had a good time as we’ve laid it all out for you and told you the truth.
He went on to say that the investigation was fraught with doubt and false conclusions, making the couple feel uneasy, and unsure of who to believe.
“It has its ups and downs.” It was a long and lonely journey. This picture had a Twilight Zone feel to it. “It’s just too good to be true.”
New Yorker Billy the Youngster, who had a short, lethal vocation as a bandit and supposedly killed 21 men prior to being shot by Lincoln Province Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881 at 21 years old, is inseparable from the Wild West.
Other historians claim that he only killed nine people. An 1880 photograph of him sitting on a rifle, which was sold in 2011 for $2.3 million (£1.5 million), is the only other picture of him that has been confirmed.
The majority of Guijarro’s life has been spent collecting coins, sports cards, cartoons, and other memorabilia. He often works with his wife, who enjoys antique photography, to collect these items.
In the late summer of 2010, he was alone on his way home from work when he discovered Fulton’s Folly Antique Collective in the Fresno Tower neighborhood.
He was directed by the merchant to two men carrying “trash boxes.” They told Guijarro that they wanted to get rid of it because they were cleaning out the warehouse.
He offered $2, which was all he had, and selected three pictures of croquet players and other 19th-century scenes. They adopted it.
They are a distant memory to Guijarro. “They were unknown to me. It almost seems to blur.”
He liked the way the croquet shot was put together, but it took him a week to look at it through a microscope and find the famous bandit.
“You could gift him a Winchester rifle,” you said. He was leaning on a croquet stick, his attitude, and his hat were all to blame. I reasoned, “Oh my god, it’s Billy the Kid.”
He refers to Linda as a “sweet, sensible woman” when she was called and questioned by other regulatory agencies.
She found two other croquet players on the Web, Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. ” It was simply incredible,” Guijarro continued.
With the assistance of researchers, collectors, experts in facial recognition, and other specialists, they were eventually able to identify all 18 people in the picture as well as the schoolhouse in Chavez County, New Mexico, where the remains of the deceased were discovered.
It was observed that the shot was taken after a wedding in 1878, just a month after the band was engaged with a ridiculous clash in Lincoln District.
Kagin’s Inc., a numismatics business with headquarters in California, has insured it for $5 million and is looking for a private buyer.
Guijarro continued, “We don’t count our chickens until they hatch, but there’s a lot of curiosity.”
As well as purchasing another vehicle, he and Linda plan to cover bills, help loved ones, and begin plans for future expeditions.
He asserts that because they sell virtually everything they encounter, they are not hoarders. We’d be sitting on hundreds acres of other stuff.” It all comes down to going on a hunt.”
