(Photos from Robert Runyon Collection online. Joe Guerrero (as identified in photos on RRunyon webpage) and Gypsy Joe (described in "Rattling Yours...") may not be the same person. If you can detect a missing finger in any of these photos then you'll solve a mystery)
Gypsy Joe Guerrero had a missing finger where he chopped it off after being bitten by a snake. He was a curandero of sorts who had a cure for any ailment. In Rattling Yours… W.A. King, Jr. wrote, “Every other tooth in Joe’s mouth was 24-carat gold and his ears were pierced to make him look like a genuine gypsy which he wasn’t.” Joe later went to Tierra Blanca, Vera Cruz and began supplying the snake farm with snakes and other animals. Joe was also illiterate and sometimes sent mail. Letters from Joe were always difficult to make sense of. One time Joe requested a box full of pepper. Sending pepper into Mexico made as much sense as sending snow to Alaska so The Snake King sent a letter to Joe asking him if he wanted red pepper or black pepper. Joe’s wrote back to say, “I dunt kere wot color peper you sand me. Jus so its toylet peper!” Another time The Snake King asked W.A. Jr. to place an order for 2 or 3 monkeys. The Snake King asked Jr. to write it in Spanish, short and sweet, just to make sure Joe got it right. In Spanish, the word “or” is just an “o” which could easily be mistaken for a zero. Joe wound up sending 203 monkeys.
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