Van Halen expert needed

Folks,
I was at a friends house the other day and the subject of Ebay came up. He produced an original (top copy) contract for a concert in 1977 (I think) at the Coliseum in Houston, Texas signed (in ink) by Dave Roth. He asked me what I thought it was worth and I told him that I would look into it but so far I have not had much luck. Does anyone have any ideas on how to figure the value?. I’ve been given values from $50.00 to $1500.00 and I am totally lost now.

unclviny

No idea personally, sorry. But some research ideas:

  • check auction sites - eBay, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, etc…for comparable signed ephemera

  • check autograph dealers - there are a bunch in New York and probably LA, too - do a search and find their sites and see what they have for sale - and again, look for comps

  • re-title your thread “autograph expert needed” since what you are asking about is how to determine the value of an autograph that is from Dave, not about the band, its music, etc…

I would guess that the contract is not worth all that much - perhaps $50 - $100. The market for rock contracts may be bigger, but I have not heard of it. Also, specific to Van Halen, they are famous (notorious?) for having a special rider in their contracts demanding “no brown M&M’s” - it was tongue-in-cheek example of how silly they were and how much power they had. If your contract includes the No Brown M&M’s line in it, I would expect the value to be greater - especially since this was at the beginning of their careers. At the very least, your friend could market the contract on eBay as one of the earliest known Van Halen contracts barring brown M&M’s!

Good luck.