Kurt Cobain's Bass Fetches $43,750 at Auction, Other Rock Rarities Make Bidders Temporarily Forget About Recession

BY Greg PrattPublished Jun 25, 2009

Despite the economic crisis, rock nerds are spending more money than many of us can even imagine having as disposable income on cool rock rarities. And, because we're rock nerds, too, we love reading about it.

Earlier this week, Christie's had one of their pop culture auctions, this time featuring several items that had rock buffs drooling - and forking over the dough.

According to Rolling Stone, the biggest of the big-ticket items was a Sears bass that Kurt Cobain used to record early demos with pre-Nirvana bands like Fecal Matter. Purchase price: $43,750.

Also bought for way too much money was a Beatles fan club poster signed by all four Beatles, which went for $52,000; two notebooks that original AC/DC screamer Bon Scott wrote lyrics in, for $35,000; a "dirty piece of paper" that Bob Dylan wrote some of the lyrics to "With God on Our Side" on, which went for $25,000; a Tokai Stratocaster which Stevie Ray Vaughn once owned, which someone paid $22,500 for.

There were other items sold, such as letters between a young Jimmy Page and an American pen pal ($12,500) and more hand-written Bob Dylan lyrics (also $12,500). But perhaps most surprisingly was a series of autographed Alice in Chains promo pictures; they went for $4,375.

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