An early tape of Bob Dylan in performance will be auctioned next month with a $20,000 estimate.
Dylan is perhaps as popular as he’s ever been in 2025.
Once an outsider, he is now a revered elder statesman, a Nobel Prize winner who has just been portrayed by the biggest leading man in Hollywood.
All this is putting considerable heat into the Dylan collectibles market.
A Dylan sale due to close on March 12 features a fascinating fragment from the period of A Complete Unknown – the Timothee Chalamet biopic – a tape of a young Dylan in action.
The recording was made at the Gaslight Cafe around 1961 by Terri Thal, who managed Dylan early in his career.
The young Robert Zimmerman, as Dylan was born, left his home in Minnesota in January 1961 after dropping out of college.
Bob Dylan on a New York street with Dave Van Ronk (far right) and Van Ronk’s wife Teri Thal (behind Dylan), who made this recording and managed both artists.
He headed to New York, his first aim a pilgrimage to his hero, Woodie Guthrie. He managed to meet Woodie, at this stage hospitalised, and also took his music out onto the stages of Greenwich Village, which was in the the grip of a socially-conscious folk revival.
It’s here that Teri Thal recorded him for this tape.
Thal, then married to folk musician Dave Van Ronk, was Dylan’s first manager.
She helped Dylan out, getting him bookings and publicity, for around 6 months.
This recording was made in the Gaslight, a venue that was important for the Beat Poets and then the folk revival from 1958 on.
Teri Thal told the Flagging Down the Double Es Bob Dylan blog: “I think the tape is very good for what it is and the sounds on it. I have the original tape which will go up for auction one of these days [update: It’s up now!]. The sound is stunning. Because it’s such an old tape, I thought the sound would’ve dissolved, but it’s incredible. It’s just gorgeous.”
The sale, which closes online on March 12, includes other Dylan items including stage costumes, a Martin D-41 guitar and a harmonica.
Dylan has been collectible since the 1960s, but there has been an explosion in prices in recent years.
His “going electric” guitar from the Newport Folk Festival of 1865 was auctioned for just short of $1 million in 2013. Earlier this year drafts and notes for the lyrics of Hey Mr Tambourine Man realised £400,000 at auction.
Fans of Dylan who can’t afford the $20,000 estimate for this tape will hope it is bought by someone willing to release the music on it.
