Top dollar for Dead’s skeletons
Grateful fans bid on road manager’s memorabilia to tune of $1.1 million
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer
Grateful Dead fans, who have a tough time letting go, were grateful for the chance to shell out big bucks Tuesday in San Francisco for what less enlightened people would call, well, junk.
It wasn’t junk, said fans of the defunct rock group. Not hardly.
The stuff on the auction block might look like empty speaker boxes, corroded guitar strings and funky old steamer trunks, but it constituted the genuine and authentic castoffs of the great Jerry Garcia.
So the bidding started high, and it went higher.
One of the empty speaker boxes sold for $1,680. Other empty boxes sold for $1,200 and $900. In the 1970s, they had held speakers in the band’s enormous Wall of Sound concert loudspeaker system, but the speakers themselves were long gone.
Another treasure was a suitcase full of Garcia’s spare guitar strings. It went for $16,800. An empty red steamer trunk sold for $13,200.
…
As devoted Dead fans know, Tuesday’s auction fell on the 30th anniversary of a beloved concert by the band in Ithaca, N.Y., an event so stellar in Ithaca history that the mayor declared Tuesday to be Grateful Dead Day. Devoted Dead fans point out that it is almost always the anniversary of a beloved Dead concert, someplace.
The online article also includes a photo gallery.
Bonhams & Butterfields auctioneers said bidding at the San Diego sale was “brisk”.
The San Francisco band became global stars as the city became a counterculture hub in the 1960s.
They often gave free concerts, including several during 1967’s “summer of love”.
Shurtliff started as a truck driver for the band in 1967 and went on to become president of the group’s board of directors when the band formed their own company in the 1970s.
I saw this auction listing more than a week ago. Ramrod’s Harley Davidson will find a new home. Some of those guitars were interesting, if you had lots money and knew how to play them. Most people might be able to afford some of the art and posters reasonable prices.
Old speaker boxes and trunks – are still junk…