"Music memorabilia is bought less for investment, more for love", says Stephen Maycock, the leading rock n' pop consultant. "Collectors live with their things" – and this, perhaps, is what makes this specialist market so appealing. Claire Tole-Moir, head of the Popular Culture department at Bonhams, agrees, "there's a massive connection", she says, "between our buyers and a band or singer they may have followed in their youth." Collectors, understandably, want a bit of Debbie Harry in their lives.
Within the broader history of the antiques and collectibles market, music memorabilia is a relative newcomer to the auction scene. Sotheby's held the first 'Rock Memorabilia' auction in December 1981. And collecting pop memorabilia is very much tied up with a romantic nostalgia for a band, singer or group from a buyer's formative years. There's a feel-good factor: twenty years on, with money in their pocket, collectors return in droves to buy back a slice of the action.
The years surrounding Elvis and the birth of Rock n' Roll remain a perennial favorite for collectors, along with the obvious contenders, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. "The highest prices tend to be achieved by bands with a broad international appeal," says Stephanie Connell, the Popular Culture consultant and dealer. In 2016, Bonhams sold an autographed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album (signed by the Fab Four with that all-important water-tight provenance) for £74,500 (inc. premium). And items with a Beatles association or connection can make considerable money. An Abbey Road street sign, in the Sir Misha Black design dating back to 1967, fetched £37,000 in an online auction held by Catherine Southon Auctioneers & Valuers in 2021.
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It's a vast collecting field covering many different genres: Rock n' Roll, Punk, New Wave, Heavy Metal, House and Dance, including posters, programs, ticket stubs, framed gold discs, artwork, clothes and personal possessions from cars to domestic objects (even Ian MacMillan's Hasselblad camera used in the Beatles Abbey Road shoot). And anything can be signed. Fifty years ago, face-to-face contact between a fan, a band, a group or an artist was more accessible than today. An authentic autograph can make all the difference when it comes to value. And buyers, for obvious reasons, need reassurance that they're bidding on the genuine article: grounds for a wise collector to source material from leading auction houses and reputable dealers.
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Demo recordings pressed on vinyl or acetate can be desirable, depending on artist, scarcity and provenance. 'The Live in Session Auction, Property From The John Peel Archive' came up for sale at Bonhams in June 2022: an extraordinary collection amassed by Peel, the influential Radio London and BBC Radio 1 DJ, in the late 1960s and 70s, featuring books, posters, rare pressings on acetate, handwritten letters (David Bowie), magazines, programs and, of course, vinyl. An autographed copy of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's album 'Unfinished Music No. 1' (1968) sold for £15,300 (including premium), and a rare Pink Floyd 'Evolutions' poster (from the 1968 gig at the University of Southampton featuring John Peel, Jimmy Cliff and Tyrannosaurus Rex) made £8,925 (including premium).
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Original artwork is another area avidly collected, especially if linked to a famed album cover with cult status. Ian Beck's original cover work for Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (widely regarded as Elton's best album) hit the auction block in 2019 (Bonhams £10,062 [including premium]). The pencil drawing with 'additional color notes in crayon' shows the influence of the 1920s and 30s Art Deco style on fashion, typography and design in the 1970s.
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And as time moves on, epochs and eras come into their own. "We're currently seeing a high demand for Punk," says Claire Tole-Moir. Stephanie Connell agrees, "Buyers often buy a piece because it evokes 'cool' or because they have a personal connection with the fashion or style of a particular era." And with the Punk movement, there's a special connection between music and fashion. In May 2021, Bonhams sold a Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren Parachute Shirt (1977) for £4,845, and again, a Sex Pistols T-Shirt, autographed by Johnny Rotten himself – with that all-important Sid Viscious provenance – sold for £17,850.
Omega Auctions, likewise, sold a pressing of the legendary Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen (UK A & M copy, 1977) in 'archive condition' for £15,000. And Jamie Reid's extraordinary God Save the Queen poster (from the Stolper-Wilson Collection) – one of the best-known images in late 20th century British culture – fetched a deserved £44,100 at Sotheby's in October last year, yet again with that crucial Sid Vicious provenance.
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David Bowie – another artist linked to the world of fashion, plus a broad international appeal – is, of course, a big name in the collecting field. In 2016, a lucky fan secured a 'small lock' of David's hair from Heritage Auctions, the American collectibles auctioneer, for $18,750, which came with a Madame Tussaud's provenance: a hair sample taken by Tussaud's for Bowie's waxwork figure. More affordable was a dreamy cut-out of Bowie, a large-size RCA Promo for the 1977 album Heroes, which sold for £892.50 (including premium) in Bonhams' 'British. Cool.' sale in March last year.
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Another booming market is Hip-Hop, where, again, fashion comes hand-in-hand with music. The Notorious B.I.G. crown, as worn in the 1997 Barron Claiborne shoot (made from plastic and adorned with multi-colored plastic gem-stones), signed by Biggie Smalls, with a further signature and inscription by Claiborne, sold for a staggering $594,750 at Sotheby's New York against an estimate of $200,000-300,000 – proving again that provenance, rarity and association are what it's all about when it comes to auction results.
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As with any other musical genre, jazz has its enthusiastic devotees, for some bordering on a near obsession. A 1973 concert window card featuring Nina Simone and Miles Davis at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, with the Original Last Poets (one of the earliest influences on Hip-Hop music) sold for $1,373 at Heritage Auctions (2016). Duke Ellington is one of jazz's greatest composers, so understandably, rare scores attract considerable attention when they appear on the market. In 2007, Ellington's handwritten score for You're the Top (featuring passages for saxophonist Johnny 'Rabbit' Hodges and trombonists Lawrence Brown and 'Tricky Sam' Nanton) surfaced at auction (Heritage Auctions, $9,560). It was one of the last scores made available for sale to the public, as the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, now houses a significant collection of Duke Ellington material, including concert posters, musical theatre scripts, correspondence, awards, audio tapes, newspaper cuttings and scrapbooks.
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That said, musical scores tend to be rarer in the pop, rock and jazz genres as the music, for obvious reasons, is so often improvised, or played from memory. But for classical music aficionados, a historic score brings a closer connection to a favorite musician or composer, in the same way a fan of rock, pop, or jazz might find inspiration from an autographed poster, gold disc or stage costume. A first edition of the orchestral score of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, in two volumes (with light foxing and staining), made £4,200 at Forum Auctions, the London antiquarian book auctioneers, in November 2020. At the same time, a delightful collection of handwritten 18th-century scores (including early editions of Mozart and Haydn) came up for sale at Canterbury Auction Rooms in 2018 and secured £3,200 on the hammer.
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At the more affordable end of the spectrum, bibliophiles with a musical bent might have a look at the Penguin Scores series – a beautifully produced series of paperback scores designed by Jan Tschichold in 1949, with distinguished typography and illustrations by Stephen Russ, Elizabeth Friedlander, and Barbara Lambourne. Titles cover key works in the classical canon, from Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 3 in G (1949) to Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1950). Collectors can buy Penguin scores online for a few pounds: for in this wide-ranging and entertaining market, there's something for everyone. And, as ever, the auction expert's advice prevails: buy what you like. "Collectors like to share stories," says Tole-Moir. "It's about making a connection. Do your research, buy within your budget and buy something you love."
