I keep a photograph, it burns my wall with time…
It’s Friday, it’s five to five, it’s… well actually, it’s the second Friday in the month, the day when we traditionally post The Bowie Collectors…and here it is.
One of the nicest things about this collectors series is the fact that there are members getting in touch outside of the usual pool of collectors known to most of us, but who are still very passionate people with some incredibly rare items…BowieNetter Visitor is one such person.
He has been collecting since becoming a fan in the early seventies and he hails from Ipswich in the UK, where Bowie was the perfect distraction from the rubbish local football. 😉
You will notice that I’ve watermarked a couple of the items as Visitor paid a fair bit of cash for some of these pieces and doesn’t want them lifted for publication elsewhere.
So, on with it…The above is a shot of David from early in 1971, but nobody seems to know where exactly. You may be more familiar with colour shots from the same session that have David sat at the piano wearing the colourful top and blue velvet trousers he wore with The Hype. If anybody reckons they have the definitive answer, please let us know, as the publications I’ve seen it in definitely have it wrong.
Anyway, of more interest to Visitor was the unusual Bowie signature in the bottom left corner. Here’s an enlarged version…
As you can see, David hadn’t quite honed his signature at this point, but it’s unmistakably his.
The next item rewinds even further to an event that took place almost forty years ago to the week, on May 19th, 1968, in London’s Covent Garden.
It’s a flyer for FANTASTIC GANDALF’S GARDEN MAGICAL SUNDAY at MIDDLE EARTH. The event was hosted by DJ John Peel and David’s old mate Marc Bolan was top of the bill with Tyrannosaurus Rex, along with another band David would get to know well, Junior’s Eyes.
For his part, David was billed thus: DAVID BOWIE (TIBETAN MIME). He performed Yet-San And The Eagle, a twenty minute mime set to a soundtrack that incorporated Silly Boy Blue.
It’s incredible that handmade items on such flimsy paper survive this long. Obviously the BOWIE logo is another watermark…which you probably guessed considering it wasn’t designed for another six years.
Next up is the particularly hard to find 1976 French 7″ 45 (RCA 42549): Station To Station (3:40) / TVC 15 (4:40).
Often listed as a promotional or sample record, there is nothing on the labels identifying it as such. It seems it was actually just a cancelled release.
Butchered from 10:13 down to 3:40, this version simply hacks off the first part of the track to create a particularly bizarre edit…though it works better than you would imagine. The B-side also has a unique 4:40 edit of TVC 15.
The last copy of this that I saw go on eBay fetched $860 USD in 2005. I honestly believe that if one was to come up for auction now it would fetch two to three times that sum…not bad when one considers that Visitor paid a fiver for it!
The above items date from the same time as the Station To Station single, being envelopes that contained programmes from the 1976 Station To Station Tour…you may notice subtle differences between the three and that’s a measure of the kind of collector that Visitor is.
When I spoke to him about the variations and why they might be, we presumed that like the 1974 programme, small changes were made as the tour went on.
One thing’s for certain, the envelopes only housed the smaller North American/Canadian version of the programme (above left) and not the more impressive European version on the right, which was twice the size.
The European version was made available to American fans through the fan club, as outlined in the advert from a 1976 memorabilia leaflet, below.
I will be doing a feature on the various tour programmes throughout the world in the near future.
While we’re on the subject of Liza Jane counterfeits, (05.03.2008 NEWS: WATCH OUT FOR LIZA JANE COUNTERFEITS) I’m sure even the most casual fan realises that the items below probably aren’t original pressings from 1964.
However, the black vinyl counterfeits are nowhere near as scarce as these two. Apparently there were just a handful of each colour pressed (Visitor says there is a rumoured yellow disc) and it’s kind of mad that these bootleg coloured vinyl’s command such high prices.
In the unlikely event that these turn up on eBay at some point in the near future, I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if they sold for as much as the original legit single.
I’ll leave you with a couple of other curiosities from Visitor’s fine collection, which kind of speak for themselves.
See you next month for a delve into another BowieNetter’s collection…don’t forget to get in touch if you fancy sharing your stash of interesting Bowie artefacts with like-minded Bowie Freaks.
