On Tuesday the Grateful Dead collection belonging to the group’s longtime road manager Lawrence ‘Ram Rod’ Shurtliff brought in over $1.1 million through a public auction. The property offered was consigned for sale by his son Rudson Shurtliff.  The auction’s top selling items included guitars played on stage and in-studio by Jerry Garcia, original art used on album covers and equipment and collectibles associated with the Dead.

Spotlighted items include Garcia’s guitar The Eagle which sold for $186,000, a Travis Bean made electric guitar Garcia used in the mid-1970s which sold for $312,000, a Garcia acoustic guitar which sold for $102,000, and a Garcia Gibson electric which sold for $39,000. The abovementioned Bean guitar came in a case which included several other rare items, including Garcia’s Vinci guitar strings, a tuning fork, a string winder and an unopened pack of Garcia’s cigarettes (Camel non-filters for those keeping score at home). Other items auctioned included a 1973 Garcia stage-worn tooled leather guitar strap by Nudie’s which sold for $20,400, a flight case filled with Garcia’s picks, never-opened guitar strings and other accessories which sold for $16,800, and a never-before-seen original Garcia drawing from 1970 which sold for $14,000.

Ram Rod, who acted as President of the Grateful Dead’s corporation after years of serving as the group’s road manager, passed away in 2006.

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