There it was sitting in my in box:
I found this and I don’t know if its an original or a reprint, can you tell me what it might be worth? -Larry
There are 1000's of these bootleg concert poster floating around, hundreds of different designs with the same cheesy layout and mismatched stolen photos.
I do free memorabilia appraisals through my site as a service to collectors and just regular folks. I would say one in four appraisal requests I get are for one of hundreds of versions of these bootleg posters. Some guy is making his living printing up these fake posters and selling them to every head shop and record shop in the country, probably overseas as well. His wholesale price is only a buck or two each and so they are literally everywhere.
Most measure 14×22 and are printed on card stock. They feature everyone from Elvis Presely to Bruce Springsteen, I’ve even seen some for the Worlds Series and other famous sporting events. The guy obviously does not do his research. The example at left shows an image of the Dead from 1966 or 1967. The concert date says 1972. Another dead give-away is that it is quite rare for an original concert poster to state a year, except maybe in the small printing of credit line. When you think about it, if a poster was put out to advertise a concert, the person looking at the poster at the time of the event most likely knows the year, so it’s rare to actually see it printed.
In this case the photo is by Herb Ritts, who is obviously not being paid for its use. The poor layout degrades it’s use. Obviously the printer and seller are also infringing on the copyright and trademarks of the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane as well, by producing unauthorized merchadise with ther names and likeness.
So, Larry, it’s not really a reprint as there was never an original that looked anything like this, the date is made up, the photo is stolen, and the bands are ripped off. Anyone with more info on the guy who prints/sells these please post in the comments section. I’ll try to update the post if I get more info.
This post brought to you by the fine folks at:
http://www.ConcertPosterArt.com
“Over 4000 Original Concert Posters, Flyers and Vintage Ads”
