THE SHIRTS OFF THEIR BACKS: ROCK’n’ROLL NEVER FORGETS

Jason Sprinzen is flanked by his friend Carrie (left, holding a Beach Boys T-shirt) and appraiser Laura Woolley (holding a New Barbarians shirt). Displayed behind them is a Paul McCartney & Wings T-shirt. Sprinzen’s unique collection of 165 rare Showco-branded shirts has surprising value.

In 2007, Jason Sprinzen bought a Led Zeppelin T-shirt at Christie’s for $1,625 — pricey, but the garment had rarity on its side. It was part of a small run of Zeppelin T-shirts made by Showco (a pioneer in the world of arena-rock audio production) for its crew members and for the artists they served.

Today, the four-figure price feels like a steal: It sent Sprinzen on a passionate pursuit for now-valuable Showco shirts (more on that in a minute). Along the way, he’s become an authority on the subject: where they came from, what they look like, who wore them.

Appraiser Simeon Lipman (left) and Jason Sprinzen display the same Led Zeppelin T-shirt that once graced the cover of a Christie’s catalog. Sprinzen bought the T from Christie’s — and Lipman once worked in the Collectibles department at Christie’s.

I got a look at Sprinzen’s collection at Antiques Roadshow‘s New York event in August 2014 and recently followed up with him. Clearly, his collecting niche is as tightly focused as a hobby can be, and it’s populated by relatively few serious collectors. These factors made it easy for Sprinzen, during his first few years as a Showco hunter, to acquire worthy pieces at bargain prices.

Among his early finds: a Showco T-shirt originally owned by Ronnie Van Zant, the ill-fated lead singer of Lynyrd Skynrd. (Van Zant and two other members of the band died in a 1977 plane crash. Lynyrd Skynyrd later re-formed, with Ronnie’s younger brother Johnny Van Zant as lead vocalist, and continues to tour today; see http://lynyrdskynyrd.com.)

If there’s a holy grail in this hobby, the Ronnie Van Zant shirt is a major contender. “I purchased it a few years back from Joe Barnes, who was the second roadie hired in 1973 to work for Lynyrd Skynyrd,” Sprinzen says. “This was Ronnie’s favorite shirt. If you do a search [online], you’ll see him wearing it on and off stage more than any other he owned.”

THE COLLECTION: When I met Sprinzen, he had 163 other Showco T-shirts besides the Zeppelin and Van Zant rarities. Since then, he has added a half-dozen more. “In my lifetime, I’ll never be able to collect every one that was ever produced,” he says (see “The Showco T-Shirt Universe” below). “In a way that’s unfortunate. However, it’s the hunt — worldwide — to uncover the undocumented examples that does it for me.”

His hobby has inspired him to write a book that will depict and describe every piece in his collection. He’s calling it Showco: The Book/10,000 Nights on the Road, and he’s given it a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ShowcoTheBook) to keep fellow collectors informed.

THE PERFORMERS: Showco T-shirts, Sprinzen said, “were never made available commercially” — an important point. It means not only that there was a small run, but that virtually every one he owns likely was “there at a concert.” If they could tell stories, music fans would listen. Consider the names on the T-shirts in Sprinzen’s stash:

• Music legends Paul McCartney & Wings, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, and the Who, Eric Clapton, and Electric Light Orchestra.

• Chart-topping family acts the Bee Gees, the Jacksons, and the Osmonds.

• Soft-rock stars Bread, the Carpenters, and James Taylor

• Mainstream pop/rock artists David Bowie, Jackson Browne, Steve Miller, and Linda Ronstadt.

• Hard-edged rockers Black Sabbath, Boston, Alice Cooper, and Van Halen.

• A little bit of country (Willie Nelson) and some funk-rock (Lionel Richie’s band The Commodores).

THE APPRAISAL: At Antiques Roadshow, appraisers Laura Woolley, Grant Zahajko, and Simeon Lipman were excited by Sprinzen’s rock’n’roll treasures. The key to the collection, they agreed: a disciplined approach. As Sprinzen pointed out, “It’s very focused — Showco shirts only — and covers the years 1970–1981.”

Woolley drove home that point. “By putting all those ‘eggs in a basket,’” she said, “his hobby turned into a creative — and valuable — collection.”

How valuable? Many of them would sell for $200–$300 at auction today; others would push well beyond that. And those rare Led Zeppelin and Ronnie Van Zant shirts? They’d bring several thousand dollars each.

Woolley’s final assessment: an estimate of $8,000 combined for the Zeppelin and Van Zant shirts, and around $400 each for the other 163 T-shirts. Do the math, and the grand total is $73,200.

“That’s crazy,” said Sprinzen, himself a musician who has played guitar for many years. “I’ve never really thought about the value of the whole collection.”

HOW MANY Ts?: So how big is the universe of Showco T-shirts? “The exact total of how many different T-shirts were made isn’t known, and may never be known,” Sprinzen says. “While they were being made from 1970–1985, no one— meaning the manufacturer and the Showco employees — ever documented the number produced. To them, they were just really nice quality and comfortable work shirts. Who would have thought they’d take on this ‘iconic’ status?”

“To make a long story short,” he continues, “I have documented 253 examples — ones I personally own and ones I have seen in the collections of Showco alumni. My educated guess? There are perhaps more than 300–350 different examples.”

Yet he also points out that the shirts “were sometimes made in an infinite color combination, depending on how big and how long a tour may have been.” That fact makes it near-impossible to pinpoint the size of the Showco T-shirt universe. But he’ll keep searching, using a variety of sources. “I’ve bought some shirts on eBay,” he says, “and sometimes I get them directly from roadies.”

ABOUT SHOWCO: Showco, launched near Dallas in 1970, provided audio services at arena-sized concerts. Co-founder Rusty Brutsche once described the company’s mission as such: “We were one of the first to realize the amount and scale of equipment that the major arena concerts required. Jack [Maxson] was a recording engineer and I was a musician. We learned that most public address systems were built for the amplification of a single announcer over crowd noise. The dynamics of live music and the power required to generate the sounds we hear at concerts today were almost unthinkable at that time.”

So if you attended concerts in the 1970s and 1980s, you likely experienced Showco sound. Now… you need the T.

OZZIE & ALBERT

How cool would it be to have time travel available to us? There are so many people from the past I’d want to meet…. Somewhere near the top of my list would be Albert Einstein, the subject of our cover story on the March 2015 issue of Antiques Roadshow Insider. Specifically, I’d love to have been there on the day of the photo shoot that resulted in the striking image we use on p. 1.

Of course, Einstein (1879–1955) died before I was born, but by a stroke of good fortune, the photographer that day, Ozzie Sweet (1918–2013), became a close and treasured friend of mine over the last 20 years of his life. It’s not like Ozz talked about the Einstein session very often, but yes, I’d bring it up from time to time. I suspect I was like a little kid at story time, trying to glean every detail I could. How often do you get to know someone who stood face to face with Albert Einstein?

Cover of Antiques Roadshow Insider, March 2015.

INSIDE EINSTEIN’S OFFICE
Sweet traveled from his Connecticut home to Princeton University in February 1947 on assignment for Newsweek, which sent him to snag a color cover image (as pictured here). While he was at it, Ozz took some black-and-white portraits, including the iconic one on our cover.

If you’ve looked at enough portraits of Einstein, you know it’s rare to see him in such a relaxed, loose moment; he usually comes across as serious and thoughtful in photographs. But when Ozzie was behind the lens, heavy moods turned to light. A Newsweek editor, Thomas Orr, once said that Ozz could “charm the birds out of trees.”

March 10, 1947 cover of Newsweek: Albert Einstein, by Ozzie Sweet. (Note O.C. Sweet autograph in lower-left corner; Ozzie signed this vintage copy in 2013.)

The portrait session may have been one of thousands that Sweet conducted during his lifetime, and he remembered so many of them—what a sense of recall he had, right into his 90s. But the Einstein shoot—that was an especially memorable day for him.

When I would ask Ozz about it, he would tell me about loosening up Einstein with “small talk and corny jokes” even as he surveyed the office space, arranging real-life “props”—books, stacks of papers, small desk objects…. He’d talk of Einstein’s somewhat unkempt aura, from his casual wardrobe to the “just-right” clutter in and around his office. (You know what they say about what a messy desk means.)

Ozzie would talk about sitting Albert into his office chair while he ducked his head under the cloak attached to his large view camera, continuing the small-talk and banter even as he studied Einstein’s features—the lines in his face, that twinkle in his eye, that great hair…. (And keep in mind that for the photographer using a view camera, the image is upside-down.)

One bit of small talk between Sweet and Einstein involved footwear. Ozzie noticed Einstein’s well-worn shoes and the way the back wall of each shoe was flattened. Einstein told him he liked his shoes that way—easier for him to slip on and off. Ozz would always chuckle when he described those customized loafers.

DETAILS, DETAILS…
Nick Scutti of Greenwich, Conn., was Ozzie’s longtime photo assistant, and though he wasn’t with him on the day of the Einstein shoot, he remembers the details Ozzie related to him about that long-ago session. One of them that Scutti recalls was the blanket just behind Einstein’s hair. On the first images from the session (including one published in Liberty magazine later that year), the blanket wasn’t there, and Einstein’s hair was getting “lost” in the red and white stripes of the chair’s pattern.

Scutti, now 88, said that Ozzie, like a magician, came up with a dark textile that he placed behind Einstein’s head. So in the more widely seen Sweet portraits of Einstein (including the one on Newsweek’s March 10, 1947 cover), there’s a folded navy-blue blanket hanging over the back of the chair, adding the perfect contrast to that wild Einstein coif.

Yes, it would have been great to have been a fly on the wall when the master of the visual—a man credited with more than 2,000 magazine cover photos—met the master of science, physics, and math: Ozzie and Albert.

Interior photograph from the October 1948 issue of Liberty magazine. Note the absence of the dark blue blanket behind Einstein’s head. Ozzie added the textile after this early image from his Einstein session, and it provided contrast for the “keeper” shot used on Newsweek’s cover.

HONEST ABE… A CHICAGO SHOWSTOPPER

Having covered more than 30 Antiques Roadshow events over the past 12 years, I’ve learned to keep my eyes open for newsworthy scenes while on site. During a long day of wall-to-wall appraisals at any and every venue, the opportunities are nonstop.

An artist’s rendition of Abraham Lincoln as he appeared during his 1860 presidential campaign.

It was no different in Chicago this summer, when Antiques Roadshow visited McCormick Place. In the midst of a typically busy day, I noticed a large, striking poster in the center taping area.

Created before the 1860 presidential election, the poster features illustrations of candidate Abraham Lincoln and his running mate, Hannibal Hamlin. Their images are accompanied by short biographies and surrounded by a graphic rendering of a rail fence.

Above the Lincoln/Hamlin illustrations is one of George Washington along with the words “National Republican Chart/Presidential Campaign, 1860.” Underneath Lincoln and Hamlin is a map of the United States that had been color-coded to show which of our 31 states at the time were free and which allowed slavery.

Encircling the portraits and map were smaller illustrations of all 15 men who had served as president up to that point. All kinds of detailed information also had been shoehorned onto the poster, from statistics on slavery to the total area of each state, and from the birth date of each president to the results of each presidential election between 1796 and 1856.

The poster itself was impressive enough, but I also was struck by the way appraiser Christopher Lane stood like a statue, staring at it, for what seemed like an hour (it was really only a few minutes). He was deep in thought, clearly soaking in the poster’s enormous display of American history.

Appraiser Christopher Lane of Philadelphia Print Shop absorbs early American history as presented on a rare poster he was about to appraise at the Chicago Antiques Roadshow on July 26.

Within 10 minutes, the cameras were rolling as Lane told the poster’s owner that it has a value today of around $14,000.

Afterwards, I asked the appraiser about those moments before the taping, when he seemed to be “zoned out” while studying the poster. It appeared to me, I told him, that he was half planning out the points he wanted to make during his appraisal and half marveling at the piece.

“Actually, you got me on that,” he said. “I was admiring it as well as thinking about how to best convey what a great piece it is in a three-minute appraisal.”

Understand that Lane—even though he’s been running Philadelphia Print Shop for three decades and has been an Antiques Roadshow appraiser for nearly two decades—has never seen this poster in front of him before.

“It has come up at auction a couple of times since 2000, but in worse shape than this,” he said. “I have never seen one in person, though I had seen the listings of the ones at auction. This was a poster that people would pretty much just stick up on the wall in their homes or at a bar or club, and so most were destroyed.  I doubt anyone bothered to frame it at the time. So it’s quite a bit rarer than the typical ‘frameable’ prints of the period.”

Lane also explained that it “wasn’t really a campaign poster put out by the Lincoln campaign. Instead, it was a commercial poster put out by the publisher, H.H. Lloyd, basically to sell and make money for [his company]. He also issued a Democratic poster [Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel Johnson] to sell to the Democrats .”

The poster’s jam-packed appearance commands attention. “The Lincoln poster is, just on a graphic basis, really striking,” Lane said, noting the illustrations of the rail fence encircling a beardless Lincoln. “But it’s also chock-a-block filled with details that show all the concerns and plans of Lincoln and his party.

“It really is so full of incredible information about Lincoln and the Republican party at the time,” he added. “That party was founded just four years earlier, basically over the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories of the west. The inclusion of the map on the poster was specifically to make that point. In sum, it has everything I love about historical prints.”

A close-up look at the H.H. Lloyd Republican party poster from 1860.

BASEBALL BONANZA: AN 1870s REVELATION

The “other” Wright Brothers as captured on 1871-72 cards: professional baseball pioneers and Boston Red Stockings stars Harry Wright (captain, outfielder, and occasional pitcher) and his brother George Wright (“short stop”). [Photos by Larry Canale]

Leila Dunbar has been serving as an Antiques Roadshow appraiser for 19 years and has been a dealer, auction-house director, and auctioneer for nearly three decades. The daughter of a salvage-yard owner in Maynard, Mass., she grew up around antique and collectible “stuff,” got involved in the family business as a teen and while in college, and went on to serve around 10 years at Sotheby’s coordinating major sports and entertainment auctions.

But Dunbar had never seen anything like the 1871-72 Boston Red Stockings baseball cards that landed on her table during Antiques Roadshow‘s stop in New York on Aug. 9. Dunbar appraised the cards along with several related artifacts at a cool $1 million.

It’s a monumental find—the biggest sports item, dollar-wise, ever to get taped for television at an Antiques Roadshow event—and a reminder that even when you think you’ve seen everything, an undiscovered relic can turn up. “No one could have ever expected that something like this would exist,” Dunbar says, “but I have found that even today, rarities are being discovered. That is the beauty of Antiques Roadshow.”

The million-dollar appraisal figure, she emphasizes, is based on insurance value, rather than auction or retail estimates. “We determined an insurance value because the guest has no intention of selling,” Dunbar explains. “She  wants to keep the archive in the family. The  archive was valued as one group because, given the provenance, the total value is greater than the individual parts. It is unique.”

The 1870s stash centered on 12 paper-thin cards hand-cut — though not very well — from scorecards published by Mort Rogers, a former player. One of them is a collage of players — “The Boston 11.” The other 11 cards of are single-player issues featuring a sepia-toned image topped by a banner reading “Photographic Card.” (Mort Rogers’ name originally appeared above those words.)

The lot also included an album that housed the cards; the earliest known cabinet card of Albert G. Spalding; a game pass; and a handwritten letter.

The latter document may have the most value: It includes notes and signatures from future Hall of Famers Spalding, Harry Wright, and George Wright, among other players. The double-sided letter’s content involves the meals the players were getting while on the road playing in Washington. Apparently, it wasn’t as inviting as the meals they were used to at their Boston-area boardinghouse, run by Mrs. Parker. Harry Wright wrote: “I am just going up stairs to supper and feel awful hungry but do not expect much, poor meals here. Too hungry to say more.” Spalding: “‘Would that we were home again.’ My sentiments have been expressed in the above paragraphs….”

Sports appraiser Leila Dunbar and Antiques Roadshow supervising producer Sam Farrell flank the owner of a collection of virtually unknown 1870s baseball cards and related memorabilia.

Dunbar was visibly wowed by the find, as were her fellow sports memorabilia appraisers at Antiques Roadshow. The owner of the collection (her name was withheld) was, naturally, excited as well, but also surprisingly calm considering the seven-figure valuation. She had been offered $5,000 for the collection a while back but declined. Smart move. She said she inherited the collection from her great-great-grandmother — the same woman who ran the Boston boardinghouse where the Red Stockings stayed in the early 1870s. Charlie Parker, her son, was the baseball fan who owned the season pass and collected (and trimmed and stashed) the player photographs from the scorecards.

The find, Dunbar says, “is extraordinary in that it combines some of the earliest known photo cards of the pioneers of pro baseball, the earliest photo cabinet card of Spalding, and a letter that shows the human side of the players — an intimate glimpse into their lives and their relationship with the owner of the boardinghouse, which really was their home during the season.”

The website Baseball-Reference.com shows that the 1872 Boston franchise finished first in the old National Association with a 39-8 record. The team’s leading hitter was second baseman Ross Barns (.430).

On the mound, Albert Spalding was the man. In those days, pitchers tended to throw complete games almost all of the time. There were no five-man rotations or bullpens packed six or seven deep with relievers. So Spalding pitched — per baseball’s record books — 404 innings in the Red Stockings’ 47-game season and compiled a 38-8 record. Harry Wright is the only other name to show up in the team’s pitching stats: He tossed 25 innings, won one game, and saved four others during the season. Both men were tough to hit: The rubber-armed Spalding had an ERA of 1.85 and Wright’s was 2.10. Boston’s starting lineup usually went the distance, too. After all, the team’s bench included just one utility man — in this case Dave Birdsall, who played in 16 games. (The 11th player to be pictured on a card in this collection never actually got into a game for Boston.)

The National Association was one of a number of professional baseball leagues to sprout up during the era. It disbanded after the 1875 season, which featured a fourth straight title by the Bostons. The following season, the Red Stockings moved on to the fledgling National League and ultimately would become, yes, the Atlanta Braves. In between, they were the Boston Beaneaters (1883-1906), Doves (1907-1910), Rustlers (1911), Braves (1912-1935), Bees (1936-1940), and Braves again (1941-1952). They moved west to Milwaukee in 1953 and played as the Braves until moving to Atlanta in 1966.

So the biggest story during Antiques Roadshow‘s visit to New York, ironically, involved Boston baseball. What are the odds?

For me, personally, the find ranks among the most memorable I’ve seen at Antiques Roadshow events over 13 years (see earlier blogs). To be honest, there was another big-ticket, eye-popping baseball item that was about to land in this space, but… as I wrote last time, it’ll have to wait.

The million-dollar baseball collection, with “Photographic Cards” and a letter signed by two future Hall of Famers leading the way.

BEGINNER’S LUCK

Are you a treasure hunter? If so, you’ve probably spent countless hours scouring antiques malls and shops, estate sales, flea markets, and yard sales in search of the elusive “big find.” Two decades ago, it seemed like our chances were better than they are now. Television and the Internet have made all of us more aware of what has value; a more educated public makes that “eureka!” moment more difficult to stumble upon. But there are still worthy finds out there.

Since 2001, I’ve been editing Antiques Roadshow Insider, the monthly newsletter licensed by the popular PBS program Antiques Roadshow (www.pbs.org/antiques). Over the years, I’ve attended more than two dozen Antiques Roadshow appraisal events, and every city produces newsworthy finds, as the program’s longtime viewers know.

Sometimes, the finds are in your own home. And what better way to illustrate the point than with a story from Antiques Roadshow‘s (and Insider‘s) archives?

It was June 2001, and our premiere issue of Insider had just shipped to readers. On a hot and sunny day in Tucson, Arizona, I nosed around the city’s crowded convention center. It was my very first Antiques Roadshow event, and a great way to get started. In the middle of the day, I happened to be in the center taping area, listening from a few feet away as Tribal Arts expert Donald Ellis told a guest named Ted that his Navajo weaving was worth $350,000–$500,000. “You, sir, have a national treasure,” Ellis said in a prototypical “Antiques Roadshow moment.”

Moments after the big revelation, appraiser Donald Ellis (right) poses with Ted, owner of a very special Navajo weaving.

What made the textile so special? The condition, the weaving, the fact that it was a Ute first-phase wearing blanket made for a chief. “This is Navajo weaving in its purest form,” Ellis said. “All of these [design] things that we see later, with diamonds and all kinds of different patterns, come much later than this. This is just a pure linear design. This is the beginning of Navajo weaving.

The texture, too, wowed Ellis (shown at right in the photo here). “This is almost like silk,” he said. “It’s made from hand-woven wool, but it’s so finely done, it’s like silk.”

Immediately after the taping, I found myself interviewing Ted. He was trembling, understandably, and smiling from ear to ear, as was his wife. They said they had no idea that their weaving was a six-figure piece. To them, it w as just a blanket they had hung on the back of a kitchen chair for 20-plus years. I asked if they’d likely keep it or put it up for sale. Ted said he didn’t know for sure, but it was awful tempting to test the waters. A couple of years later, he did just that, surrendering their “national treasure” to the auction block. It did even better than expected, reeling in $550,000.

You can still view the original appraisal at Antiques Roadshow‘s website (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200101A48.html), and it’s still a thrill to see it play out. We should all have such a treasure hanging around our homes….

Pictured: Ted and his wife hold the surprise of their life: a six-figure Navajo weaving that had been hanging out in their kitchen for decades. [Photos by Timothy Cole.]

 

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