4. The $2 Photo at a Junk Shop
In 2010, a collector named Randy Guijarro was digging through a junk shop in Fresno, California. He bought a small group of old photographs for $2 each, including a faded tintype of young men playing croquet.
A year of research followed. Experts concluded the photo showed Billy the Kid and members of his gang, the Regulators, relaxing after a wedding in the summer of 1878. If real, it would be only the second known photograph of the outlaw.
The company handling the sale, Kagin’s, appraised and insured it at $5 million. When the only previously known photo of Billy the Kid sold for $2.3 million in 2011, it was a powerful comparison.
A fair warning: that $5 million is an appraisal, not a sale price. We could not find a report of a completed sale, so for now it remains the story of a photo that might be worth millions, not proof that it changed hands for them.