Hundreds of concert posters going to auction, including 1963 Bob Dylan and 1968 Jimi Hendrix

Cindy Stephenson looks through some of the 300-plus concert posters in the showroom while setting up for the auction of the Perry Pfeffer estate's collection of rock concert posters Tuesday at Stephenson's Auctioneers and Appraisers in Upper Southampton.
Cindy Stephenson looks through some of the 300-plus concert posters in the showroom while setting up for the auction of the Perry Pfeffer estate's collection of rock concert posters Tuesday at Stephenson's Auctioneers and Appraisers in Upper Southampton.

On New Year’s Eve 1971, Perry Pfeffer was a 22-year-old guy attending his first Grateful Dead concert at San Francisco Bay’s legendary Winterland Ballroom.

The story goes that the next day he found himself in seminal rock promoter Bill Graham’s Columbus Avenue store, where he walked out with his first rock concert posters.

Over the next 48 years, he amassed thousands of rock music posters and handbills used to advertise concerts and festivals starting around the famous 1967 Summer of Love.

Pfeffer turned his passion for rock poster art into a business in 2001, when he opened Postercade, an online vintage concert poster business where he sold some of his finds.

When Pfeffer died in February at age 69, his private collection included hundreds of posters spanning from a rare 1963 Bob Dylan college campus appearance to one for the 2015 Coachella music festival.

On Friday, his estate is selling 339 of those pieces at an auction that has generated international buzz and early online bidding wars, according to Cindy Stephenson, owner of Stephenson’s Auction, which will be holding the event.

The collection includes such seminal artists and events as Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, The Byrds, Rolling Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin. But there are also some contemporary artists like Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Erykah Badu, Ween and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The top-estimated piece in the auction is an original pre-concert first-printing of a lithographed poster advertising two back-to-back shows by The Jimi Hendrix Experience on May 10, 1968. The shows were at the Fillmore East in New York City, which was another Graham-owned venue.

Artist David Byrd created a pink and yellow op-art design featuring the faces of Hendrix and bandmates Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. Below the date and show times it says “Fantasy Unlimited 1968, Bill Graham, NY. No 7.”

The auction estimate is $6,000 to $9,000, according to Stephenson.

Much of the collection up for auction are so-called psychedelic rock posters from the ’60s and ’70s and venues like the Winterfest Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium, which attracted performers who later earned rock god status.

It was during that heyday of the San Francisco music sense that promoters like Graham competed heavily for ticket sales. To attract fans, they created attention-grabbing promotional posters and handbills for upcoming shows.

They often featured bold color choices, psychedelic graphics, and abstract and provocative images that were handed out at concerts and tacked on utility poles.

The Pfeffer collection includes first prints, some signed by the artists including Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso, Randy Tuten and Rick Griffin, considered the “Big Five” of the era’s poster art.

Artist Bonnie MacLean started designing posters out of love. She stepped in to fill a void after Graham and Wilson had a falling out in 1967, according to her New York Times obituary.

MacLean and Graham were married at the time. She designed 32 posters before she left the scene in 1971.

One of her pieces, a rare, artist-signed first print poster, is part of auction: a Bill Graham Presents The Doors/Yardbirds at the Fillmore Auditorium from July 25-30, 1967. The auction estimate is $3,500 to $4,500.

The poster features vivid orange, blue and green, and a peacock’s tail next to a human face with swirling lettering listing the bands appearing during the six-day concert.

MacLean often identified it as her favorite and it was included in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2007, according to her obituary.

What also makes the poster significant is its one of the Yardbirds’ last shows with guitarists Jimmy Page — later of Led Zeppelin fame — and Jeff Beck. Beck quit the band shortly after the show.

Additionally, The Doors’ career-defining single “Light My Fire” hit No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week the shows took place. (The Doors appeared the last three nights of the six-night concert festival).

MacLean has a local connection, too. After she and Graham divorced in 1975 she moved to Bucks County, where she lived until her February death at age 80, according to the Times obituary.

Other posters in the collection have stories attached as well.

Among them an early Superman-inspired R.E.M. poster for a gig that didn’t happen.

Graham promoted the Sept. 26, 1986 performance of popular college-radio staple set for the Greek Theatre at U.C. Berkeley, but the show was canceled after R.E.M. came onstage and announced it was too dangerous to perform, according to Stephenson’s website.

Another poster with a story behind it up for auction is one for a rare Bob Dylan concert at University Regent Theater, Syracuse.

The cardboard poster featuring a black-and-white photo of a young Dylan and his harmonica was for a show that took place Nov. 3, 1963 at the New York college campus. It’s valued at a pre-auction estimate of $3,000 to $5,000.

Early Bob Dylan posters are valuable, but this one promotes a show produced by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and it is one of only a few pieces that tie Dylan with the Civil Rights movement, according to Stephenson’s website.

The items in the auction do not represent Pfeffer’s full private collection, either, according to Stephenson.

While the event will draw interest from collectors and dealers, Stephenson believes it will also attract people who remember attending a concert and want to recapture a piece of their youth.

It’s something that Pfeffer would appreciate.

“He was a very discerning collector,” Stephenson added. “Once he became immersed in the concert poster world, he never lost his passion for it.”

How you can own a piece of rock 'n’ roll history

Stephenson’s Auction of the Perry Pfeffer estate’s collection of rock concert posters will be held live at the company’s gallery at 1005 Industrial Blvd., Upper Southampton, on Friday, Aug. 14.

In-person bidding will be available with absentee and internet live bidding available through LiveAuctioneers.com.

Start time is 1 p.m. In-gallery inspection starts at 11 a.m. until the auction start.

For additional information on any lot in the sale, contact Cindy Stephenson at 215-322-6182 or e-mail info@stephensonsauction.com.

Visit Stephenson’s Auction online at www.stephensonsauction.com. For a full view of the poster catalog online click here.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Dylan, Hendrix and more: Vintage concert posters going to auction