A RARE ROLLING STONES WINDOW CARD, A BOB DYLAN FIRST AND EARLY PSYCHEDELIC STUNNERS STEAL THE SHOW
By Merritt Martin | July 1, 2025
It’s standard practice for teens of any generation to pepper their walls with the photogenic pop stars of the hour, but those posters are designed for thumbtacks and fleeting crushes. Concert posters, conversely, were initially designed to simply get people to live-music gigs. Now, they’re often celebrated as works of art, and artists design them with longevity in mind, in hopes that they will be saved and collected. One thing that hasn’t changed: Each creation potentially marks life-changing performances or even milestone events like first concerts, first dates or, in the case of Heritage’s July 11-12 Concert Posters Signature® Auction, the birth of an art form.
The two-day event boasts a range of prints from the era when concert posters began to grab a new kind of attention and spotlight. These are posters for psychedelic art fans as well as intrepid followers of acts like the Doors, Otis Redding, Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones and B.B. King – not to mention committed Deadheads.
Heritage’s July 11-12 Concert Posters Signature® Auction features rare gems like the first psychedelic concert poster.
Like film posters, vintage concert posters were born of a need for advertising an event. But historically, while film posters were often sent back to the studio after the movies completed their run, music posters typically met a different fate.
“With most vintage concert posters, my estimate is that 99 percent of them were torn down and thrown away after the show,” says Pete Howard, Heritage’s Director of Concert Posters. “The exception came with the advent of psychedelic concert posters in the Bay Area in the 1960s, which started to be saved in numbers shortly after starting to appear.”
Which brings us to our first “trip” back in time: an original and rare cardboard poster advertising “A Tribute to Dr. Strange,” the first dance concert of the San Francisco psychedelic era held at Longshoremen’s Hall on October 16, 1965, with a lineup including the nascent Jefferson Airplane with Signe Anderson; the Great Society with Grace Slick; the Charlatans not long after their Virginia City, Nevada stint; and the Oakland band The Marbles. The legendary artwork was designed by Alton Kelley (of Family Dog Productions fame) and the little-known Ami Magill.
“My favorite San Francisco psychedelic concert poster of all time just happens to also be the first one that was ever made,” Howard says of the work. “This jewel manages to be both intricately psychedelic and naively simple at the same time.”
This glittering poster advertises a November 6, 1965, concert presented by the Family Dog at Longshoremen’s Hall in San Francisco starring the Mothers and the Charlatans.
For psychedelia enthusiasts who crave the simple and boldly colorful – and incredibly rare – there’s the November 6, 1965, San Francisco concert poster for “A Tribute to Ming the Merciless” advertising Frank Zappa and his Mothers, and the Charlatans, straight from an elite collection. This show pre-dates any Bill Graham concert, any Fillmore Auditorium or Avalon Ballroom rock concert, any Mime Troupe benefit and any Grateful Dead … anything. “This seminal Family Dog poster is so rare that most collectors have never even been in the same room with one,” Howard says. A tiny number of the posters were hand-curated in different colors, and the example Heritage offers sports sublime dark-gray letters (still glittering after 60 years) on powerful dark red paper.
More than 10 years older than the above and still holding fast is a poster featuring a performer who nimbly crossed genres between blues, rock, pop and R&B. Before he was “The King of Blues,” B.B. King was “The Blues Boy,” as seen on this early concert poster from 1954, a first-time Heritage offering and the only one known to exist.
An original cardboard window card advertising The Rolling Stones performing at the Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, on November 15, 1965
The red-and-yellow color scheme (and historical significance) continues with this jumbo Globe Day-Glo cardboard window card for The Rolling Stones, The Vibrations and Patti and the Blue Belles from 1965. “Only about half a dozen are known to exist in collectors’ hands, and finally getting one for a Heritage auction after six years of waiting is a dream come true for me,” Howard says.
But it wouldn’t be a full trip down melody lane without acknowledging the folk genre. Among the treasures on offer is a 1962 window card with sophisticated graphics advertising “The Traveling Hootenanny” at Town Hall in New York City. Featuring Bob Dylan, Ian and Sylvia, John Lee Hooker, Judy Collins, Lynn Gold and Sandy Bull, this is the first concert poster known to include Dylan’s name, and it’s the only specimen known to exist.
This original window card advertising ‘The Traveling Hootenanny’ at Town Hall in New York City on October 5, 1962, is the earliest known concert poster featuring Bob Dylan’s name.
FD-26 Grateful Dead 1966 ‘Skeleton & Roses’ first-printing Avalon Ballroom poster graded 9.8
While the auction is packed with high-value rarities, it’s also an opportunity for collectors at every level to find joy in the hobby. There are Grateful Dead gems ranging from a first-printing “Skeleton & Roses” to Wes Wilson-signed designs to the first poster to declare the band’s name. These are joined by an early Beatles-potato chip ad, an iconic and enduring graphic out of San Francisco and a Fleetwood Mac print so gorgeously contemporary it could have been designed today.
“For anyone browsing to consider their first bid, I would recommend they follow their heart,” Howard says. “If you’re excited about a concert poster for any reason, that’s a great gauge. Or if you love the music. Then you’ll have something you’ll always treasure.”
