A once-in-a-lifetime auction of rock posters is happening in Bucks County and online

In 1971, Perry Pfeffer saw his first Grateful Dead New Year’s Eve concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.

The next day, the then-22-year-old Temple University grad walked into a shop owned by legendary concert promoter Bill Graham in the North Beach section of the city in what he later described as “a heightened state of awareness.”

Along with the aftereffects of the Dead show, the psychedelic posters at Graham’s shop by artists like Rick Griffin, Bonnie MacLean, and Alton Kelley were, for Pfeffer, “eye opening and life-changing.”

» READ MORE: Local poster artist Bonnie MacLean is the link between Fillmore Philadelphia and the storied San Francisco original

That set him on a lifetime path of collecting until, in 2001, he launched Postercade, an eBay shop headquartered in Huntingdon Valley, and “decided to turn my hobby into a vocation,” as he put it in the Postercade origin story on the company’s website.

Pfeffer died at age 69 in February, and on Friday his estate is auctioning more than 300 of his music posters through Stephenson’s Auction in Southampton in Bucks County. The estimated prices range from $100 to as much as $9,000.

“It’s quite a collection,” said auction house owner Cindy Stephenson. “Perry Pfeffer was a pioneer collector of rock concert posters.”

The posters in Pfeffer’s collection come mainly from the 1966 to 1971 period that’s considered the golden era of rock poster artistry. The colorful, lysergic designs with elaborate Art Nouveau lettering grew out of the San Francisco scene where Graham booked concerts at Winterland and the Fillmore Auditorium and the Family Dog collective presented at the Avalon Ballroom.

» READ MORE: Bill Graham, the famed rock promoter behind Fillmore and Live Aid Philly

Groups like the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Doors, and Jimi Hendrix Experience were staples at those venues — and also East Coast locales, such as the Fillmore East in New York and the original Electric Factory at 22nd and Arch in Philadelphia.

Artists showcased in Pfeffer’s collection include Victor Moscoso, Randy Tuten, Wes Wilson, and Stanley Mouse, along with Kelley, Zap Comix artist Griffin (who’s responsible for the 1968 Hendrix “Flying Eyeball” poster), and MacLean, the artist raised in the Frankford section of Philadelphia who was married to Graham from 1967 to 1972.

MacLean, who died in February in Newtown at age 80, worked as a secretary for Graham when she took over as lead artist at the original Fillmore after the hot-tempered Graham had a falling out with Wilson. In 2015, she came out of poster-making retirement to create a design for the Fillmore Philadelphia, the Fishtown club that’s one of many Live Nation venues that use the Fillmore name.

There are over 25 MacLean posters in the Stephenson’s auction, most of them signed by the late artist, including the one she said was her favorite. It’s a Doors and Yardbirds poster from the Fillmore in 1968 that depicts a peacock’s tail next to a human face. The expected sale price is $3,500 to $4,500.

The poster for sale with the highest estimated value is a first printing Hendrix from the Fillmore East in 1968 by David Byrd that also hypes the “Joshua Light Show,” the visual presentations by Joshua White that were a key part of the mind expanding. It’s expected to go for $6,000 to $9,000.

Pfeffer kept collecting over the years — there are R.E.M. and Black Keys posters, and one from New Hope rock duo Ween. The most recent item is from the Coachella festival in 2015.

But most of the items of interest — some quite rare — are from the countercultural era, including some dazzling artwork advertising shows by blues men Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Otis Rush.

One of the most historically important is from a Bob Dylan solo acoustic show in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1963, not long after he played Town Hall at Broad and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia.

The Syracuse cardboard poster’s austere design is in stark contrast to the flower-power aesthetic of most others. Its significance stems from the show’s historical context. It was presented by CORE, the Congress for Racial Equality, and directly connects protest-era Dylan to the civil rights movement. It’s expected to go for $3,000 to $5,000.

Stephenson said all the posters were stored in the late collector’s apartment in Huntingdon Valley. “They’re in beautiful condition. They were mostly stacked in hard plastic sleeves.”

Gallery inspection of the collection begins at 11 a.m. Friday at the Stephenson’s Auction showroom in Southampton. Masks are required, gallery seating will be set up to keep attendees socially distanced, and the garage doors to the gallery will be opened to increase ventilation. The auction starts live and online at 1 p.m. Remote virtual bidding — already underway — is through LiveAuctioneers.com.

“We’ve had a lot of interest already,” Stephenson said. “One man called who was excited that there was a poster for Lothar and the Hand People,” she said, speaking of the theremin-playing band who opened the Atlantic City Pop Festival in 1969. “He said he had never seen one before.”