GUEST: Well, I'm a Jazz Fest fan. I have been going to the Jazz Fest for 50 years, and I began collecting Jazz Fest posters in 1976. I paid ten dollars for that poster in 1976. I have a room in my house lined with Jazz Fest posters, and it brings me happiness every day.
APPRAISER: Jazz Fest is this extraordinary event. I mean, to call it a festival is an understatement. 12 different stages, music from all over the world, great food, arts and crafts, everything going on. And the festival began in 1970. And what you have are three of the official posters...
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: ...from Jazz Fest. You have 1976, you have 1979, and you have 1999. So, Fred, how much did you pay for the two posters on either side?
GUEST: If memory serves me correctly, I believe I paid $50 for the 1979 poster. And I believe I paid $100 for the 1999 one. I'm a Professor Longhair fan. I don't care what it costs. I was gonna get that poster.
APPRAISER: These were issued as commemorative items.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: You love Jazz Fest. You brought them home. You weren't the only one. But in the early years, and we'll start with the earliest one we have here, in the center, 1,000 of them were printed, signed, and numbered, and 1,000 were printed unsigned, and they were sold at different prices. You have one that is signed by the artist, Maria Laredo...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: ...and numbered 483. But then, as the festival became more popular, these posters were printed in much larger numbers. 1979, 1,000 signed and numbered copies were printed. And you have this copy signed by the artist, John Martinez, numbered 494. But for the first time, the unsigned edition ran to 10,000.
GUEST: That I did not know.
APPRAISER: So they made 10,000 of them. And then, closest to you, we have the 1999 version, featuring the unparalleled Professor Longhair, Henry Roeland Byrd, one of, one of the great zydeco pianists out there. Just a, a remarkable performer. And the art is by a New Orleans favorite artist, George Valentine Dureau.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: And he has signed it, and he has numbered it. The numbers here are even bigger: 3,000.
GUEST: 3,000.
APPRAISER: So, the earliest one we have here in the center. It's a marshal of the parades, whose name was Fats Houston. He actually was so famous, he featured in two movies, uh, The Cincinnati Kid and the James Bond movie Live and Let Die.
GUEST: I've s, I've seen both those movies.
APPRAISER: Then you've seen him perform, and he's been on the wall of your special Jazz Fest room the whole time.
GUEST: I'll be. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Any thoughts as to the value of these pieces?
GUEST: Well, my one in the middle, I'm hoping $1,000 for that.
APPRAISER: We'll start closest to you. We have the George Dureau Professor Longhair, of which 3,000 were printed, signed. So, when these come
up for auction, they tend to sell for between $400 and $600.
GUEST: I believe I paid $100 for it, so I'm...
APPRAISER: So then we come to the John Martinez poster, which was the first year that the, the fair, festival organizers realized they may have had a, a, a new money-making strategy, which was by printing more posters. While not depicting any recognizable celebrity, really captures the joy of some of the performers and some of the entertainers and the marchers who were involved in the, the entire music scene in New Orleans. This poster, when it comes up to auction, signed and numbered like this, I think, conservatively, you could expect it to sell for $700 to $1,000. But then we come to the one in the middle. When you look for this poster, you see some vast differential in prices. If this were to appear in an auction, I would estimate it between $4,000 and $6,000. And when you look online...
GUEST: (exhales, chuckling)
APPRAISER: ...the high-water mark for this is $7,000, at an auction in New Orleans. And New Orleans is the place to sell something like this.
GUEST: Ten dollars! (laughs) This will go to my daughter and probably to her daughter, as well. This is family.
