FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BILLY THE KID PHOTO

1 THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

Billy the Kid, the Wild West gunslinger, is usually associated with a Colt singleaction .44 calibre or a Colt 45, but in this picture he is leaning on a varnished oak croquet mallet.

2 PHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMORIES

This extremely rare photograph of the legendary outlaw is only the second photo of The Kid known to exist. The photo shows him playing croquet with his gang of Lincoln County Regulators in late summer 1878.

3 WHO FOUND IT?

The photo was bought by collector Randy Guijarro for $2 from a California junk shop in 2010 and will now be sold by Kagin’s auctioneers for an estimated US$5 million. “When we first saw the photograph, we were understandably skeptical — an original Billy the Kid photo is the holy grail of western Americana,” said Kagin’s David McCarthy. “We had to be sure we could answer and verify where, when, how and why this photograph was taken. Simple resemblance is not enough in a case like this — a team of experts had to be assembled to address each and every detail in the photo to ensure that nothing was out of place.”

4 WHAT ABOUT THE SECOND PHOTO?

Florida billionaire William Koch placed the winning bid for that photo in 2011, paying US$2.3 million for it. “I love the old West,” he said. “This is a part of American history.” The metallic photo, taken outside a Fort Sumner, N.M., saloon in late 1879 or early 1880, depicts the outlaw gripping the upright barrel of a Winchester carbine, with a Colt .45 pistol strapped to his hip.

5 WHO WAS BILLY THE KID?

Born Henry McCarty, but also known in New Mexico as William Bonney, the Kid was shot dead at age 22 by lawman Pat Garrett in 1881, months after a jailbreak in which Bonney reportedly killed two deputies.