Walking into a New England flea market in the 1970s, Marc Weinstein spotted a man selling large stacks of concert posters.
Having been a frequent attendee of shows at the Fillmore East, legendary rock promoter Bill Graham’s venue in the East Village in Manhattan, Weinstein was intrigued. He leafed through a bunch, enjoying the pioneering graphical artistry, and asked the vendor for the price of a poster.
“$2.50 each.”
Weinstein thought about it and replied "How much for all of them?"
“$150.”
He took the deal, despite the fact the price was basically equal to his rent at the time.
Weinstein packed the poster up into his car and took them home to show his friends and roommates. He kept them for years, giving a few away to friends over the decades, until he settled down with a family, placing them in a drawer and occasionally showing them to his kids.
One day Weinstein, a visual artist, spoke with others in the industry, mentioning his cache of posters. He found out some were worth a few hundred bucks. Nothing crazy.
“Then the internet showed up,” Weinstein recalled to cllct. “One day I see a Fillmore poster go for like $5,000.”
Suddenly, his collection was transformed from a random keepsake to a possible goldmine.
He spoke to some experts around the country and in Canada, discussing his inventory. One that dealers routinely seemed to be the most excited about was his copy of a poster for a concert at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto featuring Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Known as BG-74 (short for Bill Graham), the poster is among the most coveted of the era, both due to the artwork, affiliated bands and its rarity.
CGC has graded a total of just 12 original printings from the concert and public sales of the poster (graded and ungraded) come around only a couple times each year.
Weinstein sold some of his other posters, but held onto the BG-74 copy. He actually had two of them, one in great condition, and the other a bit more beaten up. It took him a while to realize, but he had actually hung the duplicate up on his wall in his bedroom for years.
His nicer copy of that poster, graded CGC 9.2 (only eight graded higher), will sell at Heritage this December, with bidding already reaching $5,750.
In April of this year, an ungraded copy sold for more than $20,000.
The record sale for the poster came in March 2023, when another ungraded example fetched nearly $30,000.
Now, Weinstein will see how much of a return he will get on his $2.50 investment.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.