Final Auction Price
*Final prices include buyers premium
$6,600.00
Starting bid: $1.00
It is our pleasure to offer just third example of this ultra rarity to EVER appear at public auction...and by FAR the finest specimen known.
The Rock Garden produced a small number of legendary posters printed in the shape of a diamond. This specimen is for a week long run of shows in spring 1967 featuring The Grateful Dead Charles Lloyd Quartet and Mystery Trend. It was designed by Michael Wood of Pyxis Studios.
In a radio interview with Garcia and Lesh broadcast April 1967 on KMPX-FM in San Francisco Charles Lloyd is discussed as being particularly inspiring to the Dead and especially Jerry as Lloyd was playing an early form of "fusion" music and was one of the first jazz crossover artists to play at rock shows. Garcia even said in the interview that he wanted the Dead to work with Lloyd on a future project after having such a good experience playing together at the Rock Garden weeks earlier (these shows).
The super rare blue variant you see here is hundreds of times rarer than the lavender design featured in The Art of Rock and both are original pre-concert first printings. The only difference is the date corrections in black marker in the lower corner on all of the blue variant posters. None of the blue pre-concert first printings had the correct dates listed so they were all corrected by hand.
Our records show just two previous auction appearances of the Blue version. The high watermark was a specimen that commanded $5317 on 2/16/17. That poster was cataloged as "excellent condition with very light edge handling." Of course that poster was NOT independently evaluated by CGC.
It's no secret that there are literally thousands of rabid Grateful Dead concert poster collectors that are building collections of "Finest Known" examples. Just one will be able to claim this extreme rarity as their own.
Could another Blue Grateful Dead Rock Garden poster surface in the coming years? Maybe. Can the quality of this CGC 9.8 graded example ever be exceeded? Never!
Estimate $4 000 - $8 000
Poster – Grateful Dead at the Rock Garden
Grade – CGC 9.8
Bands/Bill – Grateful Dead Charles Lloyd Quartet the Mystery Trend
Venue – The Rock Garden
City – San Francisco CA
Date – 3/28-4/2/67
Dimensions – 16 ¾ X 16 ¾”
Printing – Original Pre-Concert First Printing Blue Variant
AOR# 2.212
Artist – Michael Wood
Condition Details – Superb Museum Quality that is unimprovable in every way. Of course there are no nicks cuts tears or pinholes! 100% Original with no restoration.
*****This Poster is available for inspection at our gallery by appointment. *****
*A 20% Buyers Premium will be added to the final hammer price of this lot.*
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