VICTORVILLE — When Keith and Brian Collins visited Tombstone, Arizona, in January, they weren’t looking for what they found.
The brothers garnered significant exposure in 2011 after they discovered a Wyatt Earp family photo album at Carriage House Antiques in Hesperia. They traveled to the infamous Old West town looking for more, according to Brian Collins.
Perusing a thrift shop during their stay, they asked to see “any old photos” for sale. Among them was a sixteenth-plate tintype of two men, one seated rather casually, a black boot dangling over the other’s leg.
They purchased three photos for $13 but, thinking little of the one in question, “threw it in the glove compartment” of Brian Collins’ 2004 Chevrolet TrailBlazer.
“Later that night I said, ‘I better take this out of here,’” Keith Collins said. “And I’m looking at it, and I’m thinking, ‘That can’t be who I think it is.’ So I passed it to Brian (who said,) ‘That’s Billy the Kid.’”
Keith and Brian Collins — of Sylmar and Victorville, respectively — believe “100 percent” their photo is of the infamous 19th-century outlaw. They say the man seated with Billy the Kid is his half brother, Joseph Antrim.
“We asked the guy (who sold it), ‘Where is this from?’” Keith Collins said. ”(He said,) ‘Oh, we actually dug it up at a tent. We found it in a tin, an old tin with other photos.’ And I said, ‘Tell me the history of that area.’ (He said,) ‘Well, back then this was the area of gambling.’”
Both men were gamblers, according to Keith Collins, who said linking photos to found locations factors into provenance. Their Billy has swollen fingers, which he said dates the photo to 1877, the year Billy the Kid fought and killed Francis “Windy” Cahill.
“The first kill he ever made,” Keith Collins said. “He pulled out a gun in self defense and his hands got bruised up, according to historical record ... The bruising and swelling would’ve lasted about two days. After that event, Billy ran to see his brother.”
Keith and Brian Collins later compiled multiple side-by-side comparisons to the iconic photo of Billy the Kid. They said the facial features are identical. Brian Collins noted a gambler’s ring on the pinkie finger in both photos.
“The ring he wore was custom made,” Brian Collins said. “There’s no way this ring was a common ring. He was small in stature. He had small hands and feet.”
The brothers say their evidence, not all of which was documented here, is “overwhelming,” but not all are convinced. Bob Boze Bell, executive editor at True West Magazine, agreed to weigh in on the photo, saying in his initial reply, “We get this almost every week.”
Bell referred to potentially authentic photos he’s seen as “Billy wannabes.” He said “they are invariably intriguing and always exasperating because the people who own them always want us to sign off and approve their claims.”
“Is there any way to prove it’s them?” Bell said of the Collins’ photo. “No, short of a letter from someone who actually knew the Kid and who specifically mentions this photo, there is no way to prove anything. The pinkie ring is circumstantial, wounds are totally subjective and hard to prove and any facial recognition measuring is about as accurate as a wing ding is for direction.”
Bell concluded the photo is “kind of close, but so what?” He said the only known authenticated photo of Billy the Kid has “really strong provenance” and sold at auction for $2.3 million.
“Since then, every yahoo in the world wants a similar payday,” Bell said; however, the Collins’ claim they’re “never going to sell” their photo.
“The historic value is more important than the monetary value,” Keith Collins said, adding True West’s own published work led him and his brother to link Antrim to Tombstone.
“We found that True West had written several articles on how Billy’s brother was in Tombstone,” he said. “The question is can I link the photograph to the area it was found in? And I can. Even if Billy wasn’t there, his brother was ... He could have carried the photograph with him there. Why is that impossible?”
A cursory review of True West’s website revealed at least one instance wherein Antrim was linked to Tombstone, included on Marshall Trimble’s “Ask the Marshall” page.
Unclear, however, is whether Antrim’s time in Tombstone came before or after Billy the Kid was shot dead by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett on July 14, 1881.
Still, the Collins’ photo now joins the throng of possible Billys, including one owned by Randy Guijarro that stirred controversy in October 2015 before and after the National Geographic Channel premiered a documentary on it entitled, “Billy the Kid: New Evidence.”
Guijarro’s photo, purchased in Fresno in 2010, shows Billy the Kid and members of the Lincoln County Regulators posse playing croquet. Experts with Kagin Inc. authenticated it after more than a year of analysis, according to a National Public Radio report.
True West’s editorial staff, led by Bell, denounced the photo’s authenticity. Bell told the Daily Press the “facial forensics” used were “basically a parlor trick masquerading as science.”
But Jeff Aiello, executive producer of the documentary, argued True West “hides behind” its own version of provenance.
“As these people die off, there will be a new group of collectors, and there will be a changing of the guard ... that includes better technology,” Aiello told the Daily Press. “With this technology, 60 percent is basically 100 (percent). It’s part of this weird algorithm used. And Billy in the croquet photo came back at 80 percent.”
Aiello agreed to review Keith and Brian Collins’ photo, saying “in my opinion, neither one of those guys is close to Billy.”
“I laid out facial recognition data over them,” he said. ”(The) facial geometry doesn’t match. (It’s a) cool image though.”
Meanwhile, Keith Collins welcomes both critics and believers alike, saying he “would challenge anybody to prove this is not Billy.”
“When you find an unknown photograph — and I don’t care who you are — all you can do is compare it to the known one and then match historical evidence linking it to it,” he said. “Brian and I are trying to preserve history before it’s gone. We’ve found so much stuff over the years that we can’t keep track ... Our house is nothing but stories.”