John Wesley Hardin Photograph

Appraised on: August 1, 1998

Appraised in: Los Angeles, California

Appraised by: Elyse Luray-Marx

Category: Photographs

Episode Info: Fame & Fortune (#1016)

Originally Aired: May 29, 2006

IMAGE: 1 of 2  

Appraisal Video: (1:24)

GUEST: I have a... I think it's a pretty rare photo of John Wesley Hardin. And he was an outlaw in Texas, a very infamous outlaw. When I first saw it, I just thought it was a nice cowboy photo. And then the owner of the store told me that it looked like John Wesley Hardin.

APPRAISER: And then did you do some research to find out if it was definitely Hardin?

GUEST: Yeah, that night I went home and I started reading every book I could find. And, uh, it sure added up to John Wesley Hardin.

APPRAISER: What we have here is a western photograph of an outlaw gang at a saloon. But you're right, when you look at it very close up, it does appear to be Hardin, and comparing an image that you found, this cabinet photograph is a very famous photograph. And if you look at his face and you actually look at the face of Hardin, it's identical. He was a very famous outlaw. The interesting thing about it is there are not a lot of photographs around of him. There's only about three or four known photographs. If it was a photograph of just a western saloon, it would probably be worth around $500. But because of the fact that it does appear to be Hardin, and since John is so rare, I would imagine that the estimate on this piece would be between $30,000 and $50,000.

GUEST: Wow. Awesome.

APPRAISER: It's an excellent, excellent, really rare piece of western Americana.

GUEST: Wow, that's good news.

APPRAISER: Yeah, thanks for bringing it in.

GUEST: No problem. Thank you.