As any good train robber will tell you, sometimes the gems are just right out there for the taking:
Hidden in plain sight for years was a treasure that may be worth as much or more than the Wyoming museum that now has it.
The treasure is one of the five original copies of a photograph that Harry Longabaugh — better known as the "Sundance Kid" — had taken with his paramour, Ethel "Etta" Place, just before the wanted outlaws fled the country for Argentina with notorious outlaw partner Butch Cassidy.
Nothing about the photo in particular jumps out at you when you look at it:
It's not the depiction in the photo, however, but its provenance: the Sundance Kid, who became famous in the 1800s as a train robber and general outlaw in the Wild West, commissioned the photo in New York City and had just a few copies of it printed up.
The Hot Springs County Museum & Cultural Center came into the photograph as part of a batch of donations, and for a long while wasn't aware of what it had on its hands. The Kid had bought the cards "to send friends and family as a fond farewell" before he and his wife dipped out for South America.
Needless to say, it's worth quite a bit. And before you ask, "Now wait a second, how could it be worth more than the whole museum?" let me remind you that the Hot Springs County Museum & Cultural Center is a frontier facility, and as such it's very modest by big-city standards:
So it's not that hard to imagine. Great find for the museum, though!
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