Philip Weiss April 26 sale to feature pop culture items What was supposed to be a single-owner sale of vintage comic books and comic art for Phillip Weiss Auctions on Saturday, April 26, has mushroomed into nearly 1,000 lots of pop culture collectibles.
by Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and others; a collection of Murray the K concert programs, signed by numerous performers; a book signed by Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane and other jazz legends; a Madonna signed children's book set; and items signed by Jose Feliciano, Cold Play and other artists.
An autograph collection of 25 “Theatre World” hardcover books, with dust jackets, from the 1940s through the '70s, will also be sold, one at a time. Each volume is profusely autographed with the signatures of over 100 great stage performers. Also from the same collector: 14 autograph books, with entries by George Reeves, all of the Three Stooges, Boris Karloff, Paul Newman and many others.
But the “Theatre World” books are bound to take center stage. Just a few of the names inside these astounding volumes include Helen Hayes, Lillian Gish, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Angela Lansbury, Vivian Leigh, Barbra Streisand, Margaret Hamilton, James Dean, Al Pacino, Robert Redford, Woody Allen and Richard Burton. Remarkably, a single person collected all these autographs.
A document expected to sell for between $10,000 and $20,000 is a NASA Moon Landing Flight Plan from the historic Apollo 11 mission, signed by 23 astronauts and dated July 1, 1969. The Apollo 11 voyage was the first manned mission to land on the moon. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin set foot on the moon, while Michael Collins orbited above them.
The signatures on the document, contained in a ring-bound notebook, includes those of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins; plus the astronauts Charles Conrad; Alan Shepard; Wally Schirra; Jim Lovell; Dave Scott; Al Worden; Tom Stafford; Gene Cernan; Dick Gordon; Walter Cunningham; Don Eisele; Joe Engle; Rusty Schweickart; Joe Kerwin; Paul Weitz; Jerry Karr; and two others (indistinct).
Celebrity autographs include a collection acquired in person at the 2004 and 2005 Golden Globe Awards, many with photos. The names include Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan; Orlando Bloom; Scarlett Johansson; Neve Campbell; Jessica Beals; Eva Longoria; Minnie Driver; Bill Macy; Dennis Leary; Evan Rachel Wood; Felicity Huffman; Kelly Osbourne; Marcia Cross; Don Cheadle; and others.
Additional autographs of interest will include an Andy Warhol “Brooklyn Bridge” poster, signed; a baseball signed by Connie Mack and members of the Philadelphia Athletics; a photo signed by Gilda Radner as “Lisa Loopner”; a photo signed by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan; and a single lot of 20 signatures of prominent figures from the '50s and '60s, including John and Robert F. Kennedy.
Then, on Saturday, May 17, Part 2 of the record-setting Newport Stamp Collection will be sold. Part 1 made headlines when, on February 9, an unused 1869 24-cent inverted center U.S. stamp, #120b, certified Fine and one of only four unused examples know to exist, soared to $1.271 million. It was a new world record for a U.S. invert (the previous record was for an Inverted Jenny, at $825,000).
Part 2 of the sale promises to be just as enticing for collectors. Highlights will include U.S. singles
