Hey do you fancy purchasing parts of a rusty old van last used sometime in the 1990s? A steering wheel? A side panel? Or maybe a front section? Don’t all rush at once.
These were all parts of the Mel-Van, the beat up vehicle used by grunge band, The Melvins and they are just some of many items of rock-related artefacts at the Julien’s Music Icons auction at the end of this month.
The Melvins weren’t exactly rock legends, no? Ah but their buddy was. The reason for the auction house’s interest in them is that all three items were touched by the hand of Kurt Cobain.
The side panel features a mural featuring the band KISS that was hand-drawn by the Nirvana singer, the steering wheel was held by Cobain’s hands – he drove the Melvins to many of their gigs in the Washington State area - and the front hood section of the van is spray-painted with the words ‘MEAN MACHINE’ and well, it just looks cool.
The side panel with the mural is expected to fetch up to $40,000, the steering wheel up to $4,000 and the front section anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000.
It’s not the most valuable Cobain-related item in the auction though – that is likely to be a Takamine acoustic guitar that the singer played at a recording session in the Netherlands in November 1991. It could fetch anything up to $500,000.
Other notable lots in the Julien’s auction include a Charvel Art Series guitar signed by its owner, Eddie Van Halen, a Foo Fighters Gold Tour Gretsch drumkit as played by both Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl and Noel Gallagher’s handwritten lyrics to Wonderwall. There’s also an array of Elvis-related items, including a beer bottle he is supposed to have once drunk out of and a lock of the singer’s hair.
The Julien’s Rock Icons auction takes place at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York on May 30 and 31, but before then there’s a chance to see many of the items on display over this side of the pond. They will be exhibited at the Hard Rock Cafe in Piccadilly Circus from tomorrow (May 9) to May 14. Opening hours are 10am to 11pm and admission is free.
And if you have a spare few thousand and are interested in purchasing any of the actual items in the auction head over to the Julien’s website here.
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