Rare Ansel Adams photos bought for $45 at Fresno garage sale

I don’t have any new perspective or rich commentary on the subject, but when I hear about this sort of thing it drives me crazy.

A man, doing his usual garage sale shopping, bought a box of pictures for $45. They turned out to be worth $200 million when experts agreed they were some lost photos taken by Ansel Adams.

I go to garage sales and I am ecstatic if I find a warn down piece of furniture I can maybe turn into something usable. But $200 million photos for $45. I would hate to be the guy that sold them, but luck isn’t for the foolish.

Oh! And there is a local connection, Ansel Adams taught in Pasadena and possibly stored the photos there, so says an expert in CNN’s story.

“Photography expert Patrick Alt, who helped confirm the authenticity of the negatives, suspects Adams carried them to use in a photography class he was teaching in Pasadena, California, in the early 1940s.”

Email: daniel.tedford@sgvn.com | Twitter: @dgtedford @sgvtribune | Facebook: SGVTribune