Yet another "Billy the Kid" photo!

[Chris Lampe]

I'm starting a new thread as an off-shoot of the other "another....." thread because I bet a lot of people will miss the new discussion at the end of the fourth page. 

 

There is a new alleged BTK photo that was purchased on Ebay and a Northeast TV station did a short story on it and interviewed the owner.  The link is here:  http://www.wyff4.com/r-video/29653291/detail.html

 

This guy also claims to have photographs of several other famous western personalities.  He uses a facial recognition program to illustrate the similiarites between his photo and the authentic image but I've seen several images where the features match up really closely to the real Billy so I'm not too impressed.  As usual, there is zero provenance.  The owner uses the fact that this guy tilts his head and wears his hat the same way BTK does but a quick examination of the entire tintype shows that the guy standing has his vest buttoned backwards!  Oops....looks like he's comparing his reversed image to the corrected BTK image so I guess they don't tilt their heads and wear their hats in the same manner! 

 

Looks like another bust but I do enjoy seeing each and every claimed image because who knows, maybe someday one will actually be the real thing!

[Michael]

Just another of the recently numerous ebay/flea market generated mis-identified image collections. Only those with minimal knowledge would give it a second look and only those with personal gain would defend it. Without the development of the internet that "discovery" and the many others would never make out of the neighborhood where found.

[anthony martin]

  Michael,

       This BTK photo is just one that will be coming out of the woodwork in light of the recent record setting price for the real deal.If he persists the present owner will eventually find someone possessed of more enthusiasm than good judgement which hurts all the dealers.The two brothers here in California that claims the Wyatt Earp album have a bit of a " reputation" among dealer and collector circles out here and it will be interesting to see how that one develops!I expect that one to be a major talking point but so far the material is just not convincing.

[Daniel Buck]

Here's the problem -- and in part a reason why provenance is so helpful in cases like this -- lots of people look alike.  If you spend enough time haunting eBay you will find photos that look like any Old West celebrity you can care to name.  In fact, this young man has been doing just that, buying anonymous photos and declaring they look like ....  whomever.  He now owns a pantheon of self-declared photos of Old West figures.

  eBay dealers in fact are fond of offering photos with the testimonial, "I've been told this man looks like Billy the Kid," in hopes of juicing up the price.  "I've been told" is the giveaway.

Second, even photos of the same person look different.  No two photos line up perfectly, though it must be said that most people have two eyes, one nose, and one mouth, so there will be normally be a certain basic coincidence, whether they are the same person or not. 

Third, facial recognition software is often misused in cases like this, bringing a hocus-pocus aspect to the question.  I laughed out loud when the expert morphed one photo into the other, as if to say, "See!! It is a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge!!"

Dan

[anthony martin]

  Daniel,

     Of course,you're absolutely right on all points and there is another factor here that we moderns often also don't consider-that of people's appearance then as opposed to now-national/ethnic background and nutritional differences for instance.One could tell Anglo Saxon from Celt from German or French etc. and in each those sub groups there was a remarkable amount of similarity.That's had over 100 years to mix up and flatten out a bit and people here do tend to look different now.I've owned a couple of photos that looked startlingly like Bat Masterson who was pretty distinctive looking.

    Isn't it interesting that these fellows always tend to latch on to an" expert" who's played with  facial recognition software.I'd say let's give this expert about 75 or 100 photos of Elvis impersonators(all posed identically,of course) and sit back to see what merry mix ups occur!

[slowtrap]

We've seen a lot of these newly discovered doppleganger photos of famous people over the years. I agree that faces can look really similar, but that doesn't always mean it's the same person.  

[Murray A. Gewirtz]

Chris, to further explain what you're saying, When you compare the two photos unreversed, BTK wears his hat with the brim slanted down toward his right ear, while the look-alike wears his with the brim tilted toward his left ear.

[William E. Shaw]

It looks more like BTK than anything I've seen to date. Heh... hat slant?  I slant mine any which way or not at all... depends. I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss this one.

[Dave McGowan]

I look like a lot of really handsome, debonair, young fellas.

Sure, that's the ticket.

Now, if I can figure out a way to turn what I think into reality, ...

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

I've mentioned this on other threads, but this looks like a good place to mention it again.  A couple of years ago a group in, of all places, Tasmania, posted on TexasEscapes.com photos alleged to be the 'wedding pictures' of Doc Holliday & Big Nose Kate.  They were 'authenticated' by a 'Professor of Comparative Anatomy' at Univ. of Adelaide.

There are only 3 known photos of Big Nose Kate and 2 of them were obtained from the Haroney family (her real name was Mary Katherine Horoney, but the family's changed the spelling).  All 3 are owned by my friend Glen Boyer & his wife Jane Candia Coleman, who wrote DOC HOLLIDAY'S WOMAN, a biographical novel about Kate.  One was taken when she was 17, in 1867, 1 in the late 1890s, & 1, a snapshot, in the 1930s when she visited her brother's family.  Glen & Jane got the early 1 & the snapshot from the family & the other from Dr. William Bork.  Kate gave that photo to Bork herself.

The 'Doc' photo was an obvious fake--the guy wasn't even close--& the  Kate photo was of a woman in her 40s.  Doc died at 36 & Kate was only a year older than he was.  Thing is, there are a bunch of 'old West' photos coming out of Tasmania, all 'authenticated' by the same guy.  Smell the dead fish?