Did any of you folks bid on Billy's .45 Colt? It only brought
6 million.

Just think, how many Smiths could you get for 6 mil?

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No baby we aint

I dropped out at the 4 million mark.

Wasn’t it actually used to SHOOT Billy?

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Possum—The other white meat!

I thought that "Billy" used a .41 Colt ?

I dropped out at $50 after I learned the starting bid.

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9tenz

I saw Billy the Kids Colt 45 Auto for sale at a show many years ago.
The guy said so and the proof was right there for all to see,,
the Kid's initials 'BTK' in the grips. Sure enough,,,

Didn't have the cash at time.
I sure wouldn't have been bothered over a couple million one way or the other if I had bought it back then & sold it off right now

The museum where I volunteer as firearms historian has a couple of revolvers that donors claimed belonged to Tom Horn. Horn was a scout for the army in the Southwest Indian wars, a rather inept Pinkerton agent, and eventually a stock detective in the pay of cattlemen in southeast Wyoming in the 1890s.

He was tried in Cheyenne for the murder of a teenager, Willie Nickel, the son of a prominent sheep rancher. Jury found him guilty and he was hanged in 1903. The Colt SAA that "belonged" to him was shipped in 1906.

The other revolver is an early Smith & Wesson double action in .44 Russian. Donor claims it was given to an attorney named Bates in Rock Springs who was president of the Wyoming Cattlemen's Association at the time in lieu of payment for legal services. No one named Bates was ever president of the Association, nor was ever an attorney in Rock Springs.

My Supervisor at the museum says a large warehouse would be needed to house all the guns and horse hair ropes with a claimed Tom Horn connection.

Standard advice here and elsewhere is buy the gun, not the story.

I did not bid, it was a colt. Alway thought they were over priced, this auction is proof I had it correct.

I would be willing to bet that at $6 Million, somebody did their homework and the seller had plenty of provenance

More than likely a 44-40 Colt as he was known to have a 73 Winchester. That shows up in a photograph.

The revolver sold was Pat Garrets, Not BTK's revolver.

But what do I know? I didn't spend my life in academia researching historical documents and living on gov't grants.

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That's just somebody talkin.

That was not Billy the Kid's gun - it was the gun Pat Garret used to shoot Billy.

Gun That Killed Billy the Kid Sells For $6 Million - The Paper.

I dropped out when I found out the greedy !@#Xz@#$'s were gonna charge me $50 for shipping...

J.

I was outbid at 5mil.

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Dave Ramsey Cultist

I wonder how many rusty old revolvers, hardly worth salvage value, suddenly become million dollar guns when the owner claims they belonged to John Wesley Hardin, Bat Masterson, etc., etc.

Personally, I'm saving up for Hitler's Glock.

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You're shy a few manners.

Later after the Kid event Pat Garret was killed near Las Cruces, NM.
He was the Dona Ana County Sheriff there and is buried in Las Cruces.
Probably taken to his final resting place in this Horse Drawn Hearse now located at the NM Farm and Ranch Museum.

Attached Images

DD962152-27C8-42CE-BBD6-E35DF8FEDDDA.jpg (131.7 KB, 47 views)

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

One of the Texas daughters of the Earle family joined Colt forum before the auction and there’s a long thread about this amazing collection. included are Johnny Ringo’s suicide gun which sold for $260,000, I think. Also in the collection is the SAA used to kill Hardin, his D.A. .44-40 he had on him when killed, Dallas Stoudenmire’s cut down Colt conversion he had in his hand when killed and an endless list of others. The family coveted the Earle notebooks of provenance as much as the guns themselves.

The way I understood the story, Garrett had taken the gun from one
of Billy's gang and the gun had belonged to Billy before that. Who Knows?

No doubt. There is a Colt SAA for sale on a firearms site that has Tom Horn provenance. Price on request with a note that it changed hands for close to $100,000 at last sale.

The museum where I volunteer has several firearms with supported provenance. One is a 1876 Winchester that belonged to Webb Hayes, who received the Medal of Honor for military valor during the Philippine insurrection. He was the son of President Rutherford Hayes and a regular visitor to Wyoming circa 1879-1889.

I always look at those "famous firearms" with a wizened eye ever since I heard that Bat Masterson would walk across the street to the local pawn shop, buy a revolver, and then sell it off to some over-eager collector as one of his own.

I tried doin' that, but sadly, nobody was interested.

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Pack light and cinch tight.

The shipping kept me out.

It doesn't matter where he bought it it was still his gun even if he only owned it for a few minutes. Larry

And there are anti-gun people in this country that think gun people are idiots! Well, there's one "idiot" that is $6 million richer, minus what he/she paid for it. I'd like to see a range report of this $6,000,000 gun! I bet my $500 15-3 can outshoot it! In fact, I'd go "pink slips!"

Webb Hayes—looks amazingly like Teddy Roosevelt in a number of his pictures. I have never heard of him. Thanks for posting—amazing man.

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Possum—The other white meat!

So the 1911 came out earlier than we thought.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

That made me laugh. I spotted that item my own self.

Ambushed by Killer Jim Miller, who was later lynched inside a barn with a couple of his henchmen.

As a side note, Bat Masterson got involved in the sport of boxing, as a gambler, not a fighter, and was living in New York City for quite a few years before his death. In NYC he was a sports writer for the Telegraph, maybe a reporter and columnist as well. But my point for this thread is a story I heard many years ago, to wit, that he routinely sold the gun he carried during the late 1800s. I can't prove that but the story is funny and timely in light of anyone questioning the provenance of any "Old West handgun".

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Come and take it!!

😳 nobody? OK, I’m interested, whatcha got? 😁