BG-105 Jimi Hendrix Experience First Printing 1968 "Flying Eyeball" Concert Poster. ...

Description

BG-105 Jimi Hendrix Experience First Printing 1968 "Flying Eyeball" Concert Poster. An original, before-the-concert first-printing poster of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers and Albert King at San Francisco's famed Fillmore and Winterland ballrooms on the first four days of February 1968, known in the hobby legendarily as BG-105 or the "flying eyeball." This is it, the poster everyone wants a first printing of. One of the true masterpieces of S.F. psychedelic rock art, done by Rick Griffin in the winter of 1967-68.

Poster measures 14 x 21 ½" and grades to Very Good Plus. COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: Very much printed before the shows to sell tickets, unlike the second printing which shows the number "10" before the word "tickets" down in the lower left corner. It's the telltale sign that everyone in the hobby knows, and which of course CGC confirms in their grading and authenticating.

Did you know that this masterpiece also doubles as a Janis Joplin concert poster? That's right, on the final night, Sunday February 4 at the Fillmore, Big Brother & the Holding Company stepped into one of the opening slots when an act canceled. Quite a nice, hidden 'value-added' feature of this poster, as if it needed anything else.

When one talks about the very best psychedelic San Francisco concert posters, the conversation invariably turns toward Bill Graham Presents and the Family Dog, and invariably lands on Graham's Hendrix flying eyeball and the Dog's Grateful Dead skeleton & roses posters. Those two are always neck-and-neck for the most popular psych concert poster ever. So we're very pleased to be offering both in this auction!

Condition details:
Poster was very well-cared-for, and the image area is about as strong as it gets, just magnificent condition. In one of the flames at about "2 o'clock" of the center circle, there's a minor mark that is 3D to the touch. Might be a minor nick. The only flaw we could find in the image area; there's literally no creasing. In a frame, this poster would look mint.

Both upper corners have pinholes and medium softness; the red color is broken a tiny bit in the upper left corner. Bottom corners have no pinholes. A minor bump on the lower right corner, and an even lighter one on the lower left corner. On the verso, there's tape residue in the upper corners, a little rough to the touch but not sticky in the slightest.

Literature: See Grushkin, Paul, The Art of Rock - Posters from Presley to Punk, Abbeville Press, New York, 1987, p.125 (illus.).