Punk Auction: Buy A Little Piece Of David Bowie

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I always wanted me a copy of the Sex Pistol’s first news release.

Now I can get one. Christie’s is auctioning off a bundle of memorabilia from punk rock’s biggest acts on November 24.

It was announced Tuesday; this will be the auction house’s first foray into entirely punk-memento sales.

You wanna know what they’ll be selling?

You wanna know what they’ll be selling? Well, there are over 120 records, promotional pieces, and photos from punk, garage rock and new wave biggies like the Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, the Ramones, David Bowie, Blondie, the Cure, and the Smiths.

There’s a scrawled flyer for one of the Clash’s first shows. There are publicity photos signed by the aforementioned Sex Pistols, in addition to the aforementioned news release.

There’s a poster for the 1976 Ramones London concert that is widely considered to have inspired British punk legends like the Clash and the Sex Pistols; there is also a flyer for a show later that year featuring the latter two bands with the Buzzcocks.

How about a set list hand-scrawled on a piece of lined paper by Bob Dylan in the early 1990s? $2,000 to $3,000, and it’s yours. A poster for the Police’s Outlandos de Amour concert, signed by Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland? $800 to $1,200 and you can amour and cherish it to your heart’s content.

Other juicy artifacts

There are some other juicy artifacts, like a 1966 promo packet featuring a new guy named David Jones, in which he circulated his new last name: Bowie.

Then there’s the really big-ticket items, like the portable organ that John Lennon used during the Beatles’ famed Shea Stadium appearance in 1965. The show was viewed by a then-shocking 55,000 screamers, shooing in an era of stadium-size rock concerts.

It was broken during this same concert, and sold immediately to an Atlanta music shop. The shop owner realized the treasure he had and kept it. The organ, now working again, is expected to bring between $150,000 and $200,000. (New house, anyone? Or would you prefer an organ?)

Most of the other items are supposed to bring between $300 and $6,000, roughly. We wonder if even the generation that identifies with the budding culture of the time-you know, “we hate everything,” and “don’t tell me what to do,” and “sex me up, Scotty”-will plunk down that kind of money.

“Tastes change, tastes mature”

“We understand that tastes change, tastes mature,” said Simeon Lipman, Christie’s pop-culture chief. “Ten years ago, punk memorabilia probably wouldn’t be something we’d be auctioning here. But now, people of a certain age have a certain ability to splurge on this material.”

Even though the art market isn’t what it once was, what with the worldwide financial blubbering, Lipman said that “with pop-culture items, there’s sort of a nostalgia that drives it. It’s not necessarily a need to invest - it’s ‘that’s cool.’”

All I know

All I know is that I wouldn’t be shelling out that amount of change on something for the wall or a case. Not even for a Beatles organ that seems to be confused about whether it wants to work would I mortgage the house and sell the children (although these are well and good ideas, pending the right occasion).

It’s not that there aren’t bands which whip me up into a fanning frenzy (the Beatles? So untouchable) but it takes a lot more than “that’s cool” to get me to put out (dollars, I mean).

Please, please, New Yorkers. Go ahead and buy. But buy stock, not pieces of punk; the stocks can only go up and those flyers will probably just get eaten by the dog.