Billy the Kid Tintype: The Shocking Truth Hidden in the Famous Photo

This is the only confirmed photograph of Billy the Kid. And for over a century, this little piece of metal has been used to tell two huge lies about him. Tonight, I’m going to show you why this really is Billy the Kid, and how this one photo helped convince the world that he was a left-handed, half mad killer.
Stay with me because by the end of this video, you’re going to see this image the way a forensic investigator would. And once you do, you’ll never look at Billy the Kid the same way again. Welcome to Ghosts of the Frontier. We treat old west legends like cold cases. Tonight, the defendant is this tin type. Is it really Billy the kid or did we build an entire legend on a misidentified, mirrored, badly understood photo? Here’s how this is going to work.
First, we’ll put the photo itself under the microscope. Damage, clothing, weapons. Then, we’ll compare it to what witnesses in Billy’s lifetime actually said. And finally, we’ll tackle the big one, the left-handed outlaw myth that came straight out of this image. And just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, I’m going to show you one detail in this photo that almost no one talks about, but it might be the most important clue of all.
Let’s start with the basic question. Is this even him? Look at the face. Notice the slightly prominent front teeth, the narrow jaw, the somewhat boyish features. Now compare that to the contemporary descriptions from people who actually knew him. People called him boyish said he had a good-natured face, prominent front teeth that stuck out like a squirrel’s teeth, and a slight build.
This isn’t the chiseled movie gunslinger. This is a 20 or 21year-old young man who looks like he hasn’t slept much. But the real confirmation isn’t his face. It’s what he’s wearing and what he’s holding. The slouch hat, the mismatched layers of clothing, the inexpensive but practical gear, all of it lines up perfectly with what we know about someone living the outlaw life in New Mexico in 1879 or 1880.
If this is a fake, whoever staged it accidentally got almost everything right. Now, before we go any further, I want you to do something for me. If you’re watching this because you’re tired of Hollywood myths and you want the real history of the Old West, hit that subscribe button right now.
We’re building a community of people who want the truth, not the legend. And if you stick around until the end of this video, I’m going to show you something in this photo that changes everything we thought we knew about Billy’s state of mind. The tint type itself has a history almost as interesting as the man in it. This particular copy, what historians call the Dedric tint type, stayed in one family for over a hundred years.
Billy himself gave it to his friend Dan Dedric, who was reportedly involved in cattle rustling and possibly even a counterfeiting operation alongside Billy. Dan Dedric kept the photo his entire life. When he died in 1938, he passed it on to his nephew, Frank Upam. The Uppam family held on to it for decades, occasionally loaning it out for display.
In the 1980s, they loaned it to the Lincoln County Heritage Trust in New Mexico, where it was briefly exhibited. But it wasn’t until 2011 that the world really took notice. That’s when the Uppam family decided to sell the tint type at auction in Denver. The winning bid, $2.3 million. The buyer was billionaire William Coach, an Old West enthusiast who outbid everyone else for the chance to own this piece of history.
$2.3 million made it the most expensive photograph from the 19th century ever sold. And that record still stands today. The tint type measures about 2×3 in. It’s a pharaohype, which means the image was captured directly onto a thin sheet of iron coated with a dark lacquer or enamel. This was the cheapest, fastest form of photography in the 1870s and 1880s.
You could get one made at a traveling photographers’s tent for a quarter, maybe 50 cents if you wanted multiple copies. There are scratches, spots where the emulsion has worn away, and areas where the metal has oxidized. This isn’t a carefully preserved family heirloom. This is something that got tossed in a drawer, maybe passed around, possibly carried in a vest pocket where it picked up wear marks and damage.
But there’s one thing about how people interpreted this photo that was so wrong it created an entire myth. And that’s where the gun appears in the image. We’re going there next. For decades, this photo was exhibit A in the case that Billy the Kid was left-handed. The revolver appears on his left hip. He’s resting his right hand on the rifle, left side turned toward us.
Hollywood loved this. The left-handed killer was too good a detail to resist. It made him different, memorable, slightly sinister. There’s just one problem. Tint types are mirror images. When you hold a tint type, you’re not seeing the world as it was. You’re seeing it backwards. The chemistry of the pherotype process meantthat whatever the camera saw got flipped when it was developed onto the metal plate.
Flip this photo and suddenly the gun is where you’d expect it on a right-handed man. The rifle is in his left hand the way a right-handed person would naturally hold it. Even the vest buttons line up correctly. Now line that up with witness accounts. People who rode with him, fought against him, and jailed him described Billy as right-handed.
Pat Garrett, the man who killed him, said Billy drew with his right hand. Contemporary newspaper accounts from people who knew him never once mentioned him being left-handed. In fact, Western historians James Hin and Paul San announced back in 1954 that Billy was right-handed and carried his pistol on his right hip.
Film historians later confirmed this by looking at the vest buttons and belt buckle in the photo, which are clearly on the wrong side if you don’t account for the mirror image. There’s even another clue in the photo itself. Billy is holding a Winchester model 1873 rifle. That rifle has a loading gate that appears on the left side in the photo, but Winchester only made model 1873s that load on the right side.
The photo has to be reversed. So, where did the myth come from? From people trusting what they saw without understanding the technology that created it. The first person to widely circulate this photo was probably Pat Garrett himself or someone working with him. Garrett used an engraving based on the tint type as the frontest piece in his 1882 book, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid.
By then, Billy had been dead for a year, and not many people who knew him well were around to say, “Hold on, that’s backwards.” The image got reprinted in dime novels, in magazine articles, in the first histories of the Lincoln County War. And every single time, nobody bothered to mention that tint types are reversed images.
The assumption became fact through repetition. By the time Hollywood got hold of the story in the 1930s and 1940s, the left-handed detail was carved in stone. Paul Newman played him as a lefty in the left-handed gun in 1958. Dozens of other films and TV shows followed suit, but the placement of that gun isn’t the only thing the tint type reveals.
There’s another detail in this frame that tells you exactly what kind of life Billy was living when this was taken. Look at his clothes. This isn’t the ragged, starving orphan you see in some stories. He’s not rich, but he’s not destitute either. He’s wearing layered clothing. There’s a shirt underneath, then a vest, and what appears to be a cardigan sweater over that.
He has a bandana around his neck, a decent slouch hat, a serviceable rifle, a revolver, and a cartridge belt. This is a working gunman’s outfit, not a cattle baron, not a drifting vagrant. Someone in the middle, armed, equipped, but not polished. That fits the timeline. According to Billy’s girlfriend, Paulita Maxwell, who was interviewed in the mid1 1920s, this photo was taken by a traveling photographer who came through Fort Snar in 1880.
She said Billy posed for it standing in the street near Old Beaver Smith’s saloon. Paulita also said she never liked the picture because it made Billy look rough and uncou and that wasn’t how she remembered him in Fort Snar. Let’s break down what he’s wearing piece by piece because every item tells you something about who Billy was at that moment.
The hat is a slouch hat, probably made of felt. It’s got a decent brim, and it’s shaped the way working cowboys shape their hats. Creased, functional, nothing fancy. This isn’t a show hat. This is something you wear when you’re riding in the sun all day. The vest is dark, probably wool or heavy fabric.
It’s got pockets, which means it’s practical. Cowboys used vest pockets to carry everything from tobacco to ammunition to pocket watches. The bandana around his neck is tied loosely. the way you’d wear it if you needed to pull it up over your nose and mouth in a dust storm. During the Lincoln County War, different factions reportedly wore different colored items to identify themselves in gunfights.
The rifle is a Winchester Model 1873. It’s the same rifle that became known as the gun that won the West. It held 15 rounds. It was reliable and it was available everywhere. If you were living the outlaw life in New Mexico in 1880, you carried a Winchester. The revolver on his hip is harder to identify because of the photo quality and condition, but it appears to be a cult single-action army revolver.
That was the standard sidearm for just about everyone in the West at that time. Lawman, outlaws, ranchers, soldiers. And here’s the thing, all of that gear cost real money. A Winchester in 1880 cost about $25. A cult revolver was another 15 or 20. The hat, vest, cardigan, boots, you’re looking at close to 70 or $80 worth of equipment.
For context, a cowboy in 1880 made about $30 a month. So, Billy either had money saved up, was getting paid well for whatever work he was doing, or wassupplementing his income in ways that weren’t exactly legal. That’s where the real power of this photo lives. Because when you put all of that together, the mirrored image, the gear, the expression, the location, it doesn’t just correct a myth.
It shows us who Billy actually was at that moment in time. There’s one more thing in this photo that almost nobody mentions, and it might be the most revealing detail of all. Look at Billy’s eyes. He’s not looking directly at the camera. He’s looking slightly up or even dazed, almost like he’s uncomfortable or distracted.
In the 1870s and 1880s, getting your photo taken was a big deal. You had to sit or stand perfectly still for several seconds while the exposure was made. Any movement would blur the image. Most people stared straight into the lens because that’s what the photographer told them to do. And because having your picture taken was an unusual, memorable event. Billy didn’t.
And that tells you something about his state of mind when this photo was taken. He looks tired. He looks wary. He doesn’t look like someone who wanted to be there. Now, think about when this photo was probably taken. Based on Polya Maxwell’s account and historical evidence, this was likely taken in early 1880 at Fort Snar.
By that time, Billy had already been involved in the Lincoln County War. He’d killed at least a couple of men. There were people actively trying to kill him. And just months later, in December 1880, Sheriff Pat Garrett would capture him. Getting your photo taken when you’re wanted is a risk. That photo could be used to identify you.
It could be circulated to law men in other territories. It could end up being used as evidence. So, why did Billy do it? We don’t know for sure, but there are a couple of possibilities. One theory is that he had the photo taken to send to someone. Maybe Paulie to Maxwell or another girlfriend, maybe family somewhere, maybe just as a keepsake.
In the 1880s, people sent photographs to each other the way we share pictures today. It was a way of saying, “This is what I look like now. This is proof I’m still alive and doing all right.” Another possibility is that Billy was just young enough and vain enough to want a picture of himself, even if it was slightly dangerous. He was only 20 or 21 years old.
At that age, you don’t always think about long-term consequences. The photographer who took this picture was likely an itinerant tinter who traveled from town to town with his equipment in a wagon. Fort Sner was a small, isolated place on the New Mexico frontier. When a photographer showed up, it was an event. People would gather around, get their pictures taken, and the photographer would move on to the next town.
According to one account, Billy posed for four identical tint types that day. The camera the photographer used had multiple lenses that created four images at once on a single metal plate. After development, the plate was cut apart and each person got their own copy. Of those four original tin types, we know what happened to three of them.
Billy gave one to Dan Dedric, which is the one that survived and sold for millions. Another one went to Pat Garrett, either taken from Billy when Garrett captured him in December 1880, or acquired after Billy’s death. Garrett used that copy to create the engraving in his book. A third copy reportedly went to Devina Maxwell, a Navajo woman who worked for the Maxwell family and was a devoted friend of Billy’s.
That tint type was seen by Western author Emerson Huff in Fort Sumner in 1904, but its whereabouts after that are unknown. The fourth tint type, nobody knows what happened to it. It’s probably been lost to history, tossed out with someone’s belongings, destroyed in a fire, or sitting forgotten in an attic somewhere. Whatever the reason Billy had his photo taken, the tint type survived.
And that survival is almost as unlikely as Billy’s brief violent life. This is a cheap tint type, probably made for pocket change. It should have been lost, discarded, destroyed a hundred times over. But somehow it made it through fires, floods, moves, estate sales, and more than a century of neglect. And now it’s the only confirmed image we have of one of the most famous outlaws in American history.
So what does this tint type actually prove? First, it almost certainly is Billy the Kid. The facial features match contemporary descriptions. The dating lines up with when Billy was in Fort Snar. The chain of custody from Billy to Dan Dedric to the Dedric family to the Upham family is well documented. And the photo was confirmed by people who actually knew Billy, including his girlfriend Paulie to Maxwell.
Could someone have faked it? Sure. But why would they get all the little details right? The Winchester model 1873, the period appropriate clothing, the facial features, and then not realize they needed to account for the tint type being a mirror image. Second, it proves the left-handed outlawwas never anything more than a photographic illusion.
We believed it for decades because we wanted to believe it because it made the story better because nobody bothered to understand how tin types actually work. Third, it shows us a real young man at a specific moment in his life. Not the devil from dime novels. Not the Robin Hood figure some people tried to make him into.
Just a 20 or 21 year old who had already killed men and would be dead himself within 18 months. He doesn’t look evil in this photo. He doesn’t look heroic. He looks like someone who’s caught up in circumstances he may not fully control. Someone who knows his life is dangerous and uncertain.
And maybe that’s the most honest thing we have about Billy the Kid. Not the myths, not the movies, not the tall tales, just this one scratched up oxidized piece of metal showing a young man who had no idea he’d still be famous 140 years later. We built an entire myth about a left-handed killer because we didn’t bother to understand how tin types work.
If you want more Old West legends treated like cold cases, hit subscribe. And if you thought this tint type was revealing, wait until you see the story behind Billy’s grave. A headstone that’s been stolen multiple times. floods that nearly washed away the cemetery and the steel cage they finally had to build around it. That episode is available now.
Question for you. Now that you’ve seen this photo as evidence instead of legend, who do you think Billy really was? A cold-blooded killer? A victim of circumstance? Somewhere in between? Let me know in the comments.