It ain’t Jesse James, Christie’s says of £7 photograph valued at millions
♦ When Justin Whiting bought an old photograph for £7 on ebay, suspecting it was Jesse James, he was astounded to learn it could be worth £2million.
Two American experts verified it as a genuine photo of the 19th century bank robber. But Mr Whiting’s dreams of riding off into the sunset, his saddle bags full of gold, were shattered as the auction house Christie’s refused to accept the Victorian tintype image for sale after concluding the man pictured was not the infamous outlaw.
Mark Bampton, a British expert commissioned by a descendant of James, compared an existing picture of him at a similar age using linear analysis and found that the man in the new photograph had a much thicker bottom lip and a “much shorter neck”.