Authenticated portrait of Billy the Kid went up for auction in Denver on Saturday and sold for $2.3 million.
The tintype on Saturday evening went to private collector William Koch at Brian Lebel's 22nd Annual Old West Show & Auction, where auction spokeswoman Melissa McCracken said the image of the 1800s outlaw was the most expensive piece ever sold at the event.
"There's only one photo of Billy the Kid, and I think that's why it captivates people's imagination," she said. The outlaw was reputedly born in New York but moved to Colorado with his mother and brothers when his father died. He fell into a career of thievery and lawlessness and was hunted across the southern US states and northern Mexico. He is widely thought to have killed 21 people, although some sources put the figure as high as 27.
Billy the Kid was captured and sentenced to hang for the 1878 murder of a county sheriff. He then escaped, only to be hunted down and killed by Sheriff Patrick Floyd Garrett on 14 July 1881.
