Finally! The New Wyatt Earp Photo!

April 16, 2012

Busy weekend working on the O.K. Project. Spent half of it on a sexy nurse who will administer to our protagonist who is in an assisted living facility. He's being touted as the last Baby Boomer. More to follow.

Meanwhile, here it is, the photo that has lit up boards all across the globe. It appears to be Wyatt Earp in about 1926:

Thanks to Nicholas Narog for sharing this photo with me. To my eye this is Wyatt Earp; the pronounced ear against white hair, the jawline, and the white mustache really matches my idea of the man. The most amazing thing, though, is what appears to be cowboy boots. Notice the underslung heels and you can see, what appears to be, the outline of the boot tops showing against his pants legs.

It apparently came out of the John Flood collection and was kept for years in the Bisbee area. Nick is quite upfront about the details of the purchase saying that he thinks it was in John Gilchriese's short-lived Wyatt Earp Museum in Tombstone in the early 1970s.

That said, the background is problematic. it doesn't look like California or Arizona. Has a Midwestern look and feel. And, what the hell is he looking at? A buried dog dish? A hubcap off a 1926 Packard?

Here are Bob McCubbin's concerns:

"I know a lot of people who follow the auctions and have not heard about this photo appearing, which I would not have if everyone thought it was phony.

"I really do not think the photo was ever in Gilchriese's Tombstone Museum or ever in his collection. I do think that I saw every photo that he owned.

"Anyway, a collector would wonder why Nick seems to be evasive of facts that he should know. The decision has to be made entirely on a visual comparison. From what I can see, and for what it is worth, I don't think it is Wyatt."

—Bob McCubbin

Well, what do you think?

"The eye of the buyer is in the beholder."
—Old Vaquero Saying