photos of Billy the Kid

[dave spooner]

Do you believe that photos of Billy the Kid exist other than the Dedrick tintype which is the only authenticated image of BTK we know of??

[Chris Lampe]

Polly,

 

That's a great picture!  Thanks for posting it and let us know what you find out about it.  I did a very quick composite of this guy and BTK for comparison, just for fun.

 

[Polly Gulley]

Thanks so much for your response to my post of this photo. All I know now is that the lady who had the photo lived at Anton Chico. Her name is or was Bernadette. I don't know if she is still living at this point. When it was given to her she was told it was Billy. She just put the photo away for many years. When and if I am able to get any more facts on this photo I will certainly post the info. I also posted the entire photo. There is another man posing with this young man. He is purported to be Mariano Ulibarri.

[Steve McCarty]

Great picture, but I don't think it is the kid. Might be tho.

The Kid had higher cheek bones and a narrow lower jaw. His hair would probably be showing around his neck and ears.  While this guy's eyes are the right color and his narrow nose does seem to bend to the left a little, just as the kid's did, he looks too stout to me.  He kid was skinny as a rail, and he was more "horse faced".  In addition this is not a tintype and it is not reversed. I have seen several pictures of the kid and all of them have been tintypes.  I'd guess, this is a snapshot taken in the teens sometime.  The collars, I think are too narrow and the fabric is not the heavy wool that they wore in the Kid's time.

I cannot see two men posing like this in a tintype.  While the fellow on the right is staring, which they did in tintypes sometimes, I think it is just a dorky picture of him.

All that being said, however; this could be Billy. I just don't think so, and if you match to the other one's of him that I have posted here, I think the differences will become obvious.

 

 

 

 

[anthony martin]

 Steve,

    While I don't think that this latest Kid  photo is him either I feel that I must make two corrections to somthing you said,"the collars,I think,are too narrow and the fabric is not the heavy wool that was worn in the Kid's time."Now ,the characteristic slender and high set lapels that we associate with the 1880's began in Europe in about 1876 and filtered over to the U.S. within a year or so and were seen in the west in late 1877 and early 1878.Woolens for suiting ran the weight scale from 10 oz. to the yard to as much as 22 oz. to the yard for winter weight suits.Quality determined whether the cloth was made from short combings or long strand wool and fineness or density of the actual weave was very different between less expensive or top drawer cloth,and I've seen quite a few densely woven but light weight woolens.Very often lighter weight woolens were advertised as southern,western,or summer weight in the tailor's trade journals.I own many original garments,catalogues and tailor's big folios with fashion plates and fabric samples.You would probably be surprised by the selection that was available.

[Chris Lampe]

Anthony,

Are you saying, based on your experience and knowledge, that the clothing the men in this image are wearing could possibly be from the 1877-1881 era?  How about the hat on the alleged Billy? 

 

[Polly Gulley]

Chris and Anthony, Great posts. I'm no expert so I appreciate all the info.

[anthony martin]

 Chris,

    No,I don't think so.This has a late 80's/early 90's feel to me.I was trying to articulate a very different point to Steve.I remember that a big transition year was 1977.Suits started to look normal again and suddenly the stylistic devices of the late 60's and 70's looked old hat.The very same sort of transition happened in the latter 1870's.I was merely challenging Steve's assumptions about fabric weight and lapel width at the end of the 1870's.

[Chris Lampe]

Cool!  Thanks for the clarification. 

[Steve McCarty]

Hi Tony:  Did you see the picture of J.J. Dolan that I posted here?  Also the one of Rudagaugh?   They were wearing heavy clothing.  The pic of Rudagaugh must have been taken in December 1880 soon after his capture at Stinking Springs, thus the heavy woolen fabric. I do not know when Dolan's pic was taken, but it must have been cold, since his coat is so heavy.

I guess we can assume that people wore light fabric in summer and heavy in winter...duh. I do not think the high starched collar was as popular in the west as it was back east.  Few of my pics show men wearing such a thing.   

 

 

[Steve McCarty]

[Steve McCarty]

Above is a new picture of J.J. Dolan that I found within the photographer's personal photo album in his hometown of Viroqua, Wisconsin.  His is the type of clothing that I was alluding to.  Very heavy wool, extremely wide collars.  Sure, they did not all wear the same clothing.

I also have a fine picture of Tunstall wherein he is wearing expensive British clothing (tails!).  That suit is kind of a brushed wool and looks very expensive.

 

[dave spooner]

Polly, it's been said of el chivato that he could suck pumpkin seeds through a picket fence due to his prominent 2 front teeth. He was also described as a bit on the slender side. The young un in the photo doesn't appear to have any sort of over bite and is pretty well filled out,......hmmmmmm..another maybe Billy photo always gets me going