USA TODAY International Edition
Deadheads get chance at rare memorabilia
RENO – Like most Deadheads, Jesse Kant can remember her favorite Grateful Dead concert like it was yesterday.
“That was the show at the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The show was obviously outdoors and the people actually came to the show on camels; some people sat on their camels and watched,” Kant said. “And that night, there was an eclipse of the moon, and the children were running through the streets banging pots and pans trying to scare away the shadows. By far, my favorite show.”
But most Deadheads didn’t get to hang out with the band after the show, most didn’t get letters from the band members in later years or get invited to Jerry Garcia’s wedding nearly two decades later.
More than 100 items from a rare collection of Grateful Dead memorabilia are going on an online auction block from Nov. 22 through Dec. 9 thanks to Kant, wife of the late Hal Kant, the Grateful Dead’s attorney, whom the band lovingly called the “Czar of the Dead.”
Since the late 1980s, the Kant family called the Reno area home. After Hal died in 2008, Jesse held on to dozens of treasures, including a 1968 Kings Beach concert poster when tickets were $3.50 at the door; art prints signed by Garcia and a unique, colorful set of banners used as the backdrops for 88 concerts around the world. Individually, some of the treasures are expected to go for as much as $100,000, maybe more.
Also included in the auction is a wide range of art by Jan Sawka, a Polish refugee whose artwork was greatly admired by the Kants. Sawka created the bright color-blasted canvases that hung in the back of the Grateful Dead’s 25th anniversary tour. He also created the working telephone booth, covered in artistic collage, that Garcia supposedly used, though Jesse said she does not recall him using the phone often.
Jesse did keep some Dead valuables, including some Sawka originals and letters from members of the band, but she’s saying goodbye to her and Hal’s backstage passes.
She’s also parting with a wedding invitation from Garcia and his wife, Deborah Koons, as well as a framed, dried rose from the couple’s wedding the year before his death.
“I spent my time very happily and grateful with all of these items, and it was time to let someone else enjoy all of these items that I have spent my life with,” Jesse said.