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A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the ‘holy grail of Western Americana’

washingtonpost.com

11–20 of 116 posts

Re: A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the ‘holy grail of Western Americana’

#13
post #5

You must have pretty specialised knowledge to look at that photo in the junk shop and say to yourself, "You know, that might be Billy the Kid. I should get this appraised."

Yeah that's the one thing I was hoping the article would explain.

Re: A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the ‘holy grail of Western Americana’

#14

If you had bought this picture for $2 later to find out it's worth $5,000,000, would you feel an obligation to share some of the proceeds with the shop from which it was purchased?

Probably not no, they probably picked it up in some bulk purchase. If it came from a garage sale or the like, then maybe? But a junk shop deals in this world, that this, that they should be aware could have something amongst all their stuff that is actually worth a fortune.

Re: A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the ‘holy grail of Western Americana’

#16
post #6

The caption says the image was taken during the summer of 1878 but there are no leaves on the trees. So either the trees around their hide out were all dead or it wasn't summer.

Because the photo is purported to be from after the "end" of the Lincoln County War, my understanding is that Billy the Kid and the other Regulators were not hiding out when it was taken.

Re: A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the ‘holy grail of Western Americana’

#17

If you had bought this picture for $2 later to find out it's worth $5,000,000, would you feel an obligation to share some of the proceeds with the shop from which it was purchased?

Whenever something like this comes up (item bought at flea market and the like sells for millions), this question or similar gets asked. But why is that? The purchaser bought the photo at $2, which is what the store priced it at or was willing to part with the item. That's the only obligation the purchaser had. Pay the store money.

Re: A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the ‘holy grail of Western Americana’

#18
post #9

Of all the photos being taken right now, it's odd to think there probably won't be discoveries of old photos in junk shops in 2150.

"Hard drive from junk shop found to be from an old facebook server"

I do wonder how digital archiving will work in the future. Hopefully something better than "the archive.org volunteers decided to archive it"

Re: A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the ‘holy grail of Western Americana’

#19
post #5

You must have pretty specialised knowledge to look at that photo in the junk shop and say to yourself, "You know, that might be Billy the Kid. I should get this appraised."

Allot of people hunt for "treasures" in thrift shops, yard sales, and even auctions and then get them evaluated by more knowledgeable experts.

When you buy enough "junk" that just looks old and or unique you'll eventually hit jackpot, I'm really not sure that the guy who bought the picture knew exactly it's value or it's historical significance, he just might had enough experience to estimate that it's more likely than not worth more than 2$ and got really really lucky.

An original old-western picture could probably get more than 2$ on Ebay and the likes as just decorative art so even without it's historical significance it could've been purchased as an "investment".

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