Grateful Dead 1968 Portland, OR "Notice!" Concert Poster Graded 9.6 (AOR-3.104)....

Description

Grateful Dead 1968 Portland, OR "Notice!" Concert Poster Graded 9.6 (AOR-3.104). An original first-printing concert poster advertising two of San Francisco's finest, the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, on a "Tour of the Great Pacific Northwest" using terrifically original artwork in its marketing materials. This poster advertised a show at the EMU Ballroom at the University of Oregon in Eugene on Tuesday night, January 30, 1968. The PH Phactor Jug Band was third-billed. This poster was graded a sweet 9.6 Near Mint Plus by CGC (the Certified Guaranty Company).

Designed by George Hunter of the Charlatans, the posters and handbills were cleverly made to look like old-west "Wanted!" signs. To achieve that effect, they were designed to appear folded up, burnt and torn like they had been ripped off a telephone pole and run over by a stagecoach. It's all in the ink printed, however, not in the paper itself. It was an ingenious approach, and a shame it was used for such a short period of time (two weeks) in such a low-population part of the country. Encompassing nine dates in five cities over three states in Jan.-Feb. 1968, the tour ran, in order: Eureka, CA; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Eugene (this show); Portland again; and Ashland, OR.

Heritage sold this poster back in April from the following stop of the tour in Portland, graded 9.8, for a whopping $16,250. The specimen in this auction grades just one step lower. Measures 12 3/4" x 20" and grades to 9.6 Near Mint Plus condition. COA from Heritage Auctions.

Literature: See Grushkin, Paul, The Art of Rock - Posters from Presley to Punk, Abbeville Press, New York, 1987, p.287 (illus.).

More Information: Also making these scarce posters popular was the new direction the band's music was heading in. As the coffee-table book Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (Dorling Kindersley books, 2003) puts it, "Songs now began to flow into each other, rather than having distinct 'beginnings' and 'endings.' A typical set became more like a linked suite than a mere collection of songs, and the songs themselves became vehicles for ever-more incandescent jamming. A lot of the old rock 'n' roll and R&B material got left behind as the band scaled the heights of psychedelic improvisation."


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