1970 Janis Joplin Wake Invitation
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GUEST:
It is a invitation to Janis Joplin's wake, and they gave them out to 200 to 300 people, just friends and family, to come to the Lion's Share and just celebrate her life, basically, um, after her death. I know the Grateful Dead played the wake. I own a record store, and a guy came in and just happened to have this, and at first, I didn't buy it. I wanted to s, kind of see what it was, research it. Um, couldn't really find much, but I ended up purchasing it 'cause I was, like, "I don't know much about this," but I felt like I would be missing out on something if I didn't buy it. But he ended up getting it from a, a storage unit that he bought from somebody. This was just one of the contents, and it was still sealed in the envelope that it came in, so...
APPRAISER:
Cool, and do you remember what you paid for it?
GUEST:
$750. The only place I saw it was in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Someone had pictures of it, and I was, like, "Okay, they don't just put anything there, I don't think, so... Might be worth something."
APPRAISER:
To me, it's a really important, iconic piece of rock and roll memorabilia. Janis Joplin, one of the greatest of all time.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
And she did pass away at an early age, very untimely. She passed away October of 1970. The only one I could find also was in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You have a great image of Janis on the front.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And you know what? Just grab that and open it up a little bit. And it says "Drinks are on Pearl."
GUEST:
Her name is, uh... Her, that's her, like, nickname, is Pearl.
APPRAISER:
Right, and the party was at the restaurant down here.
GUEST:
Oh, yeah.
APPRAISER:
Listed at the Lion's Share. And inside was this little insert.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Which kind of tells you, "Bring one guest. We don't want to have too many people."
GUEST:
Yep.
APPRAISER:
"We want to keep it small." The closest thing I could find, Jim Morrison, when he passed away, they had a similar type of thing.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Which was presented at a funeral, memorial service.
GUEST:
Yep.
APPRAISER:
And from what I was able to ascertain, a lot of them were just left on the floor. So there aren't many around.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
We're going to go on the assumption there were 200 or 300 of these made. I think 200 people attended the event, and of those 200 or 300, I would say the majority of them were either left there or not even taken back as a souvenir-- especially the insert which came with it. So it's got to be extremely rare. And in all the years of doing auctions and handling rock and roll stuff, I've never seen one. Based on what the one that, Morrison sold for, uh, in comparing it to this one, I would probably put an auction estimate somewhere around $3,500 to $4,500.
GUEST:
Mmm!
APPRAISER:
And the way the market is today...
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
...with iconic rock and roll and, and memorabilia, it could go way, way more than that.
GUEST:
Yeah, that was actually more than I thought it was going to be worth.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
I was thinking it would be, like, $600.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, no.
GUEST:
All right, cool. (laughs)
APPRAISER:
I mean, the market today on this stuff is blazing-hot. It's a fabulous piece.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
And I don't know if you'll ever find another one.
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