McCUBBIN COLLECTION SOLD
More than 1,500 items from the Robert G. McCubbin Collection sold at Brian Lebel’s Old West Auction in Mesa, Ariz., on Jan. 25 and 26, 2018. Arizona historian Richard Weddle, who often writes about Billy the Kid and covered the auction for Wild West, reports that McCubbin’s premier photography collection realized more than $1.7 million, his artifacts/document collection nearly $600,000. Items from other collectors brought the overall weekend auction total to more than $3.1 million.
At the first night auction of McCubbin’s photo collection, John Wesley Hardin’s personal album (including two images of the gunfighter) brought the highest bid, at $129,800. (A separate tintype of Hardin sold for $64,900.) Not far behind was a portrait of the “Fort Worth Five,” aka Wild Bunch, which sold for $118,000. A cabinet card of Ben Thompson inscribed to fellow gunfighter King Fisher hammered down at $94,400, while a carte de visite of mountain man Jim Beckwourth went for $70,800. A signed early carte de visite of promising dentist Doc Holliday brought $59,000. “We felt the sale was gangbusters,” said Brian Lebel’s wife and partner, Melissa McCracken-Lebel, “indicative of
