Man offers $25K for Elvis poster from Lincoln show

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By ALGIS J. LAUKAITIS / Lincoln Journal Star

Got an old Elvis poster?

Been in your attic lately?

Cleaning out your basement?

[+]Enlarge

A rock 'n roll poster collector is offering $25,000 for an Elvis poster advertising a Lincoln show, similar to the poster shown here. (Courtesy photo)

A rock 'n roll poster collector is offering $25,000 for an Elvis poster advertising a Lincoln show, similar to the poster shown here. (Courtesy photo)

Look carefully because if your eyes run across a poster, advertising Elvis Presley’s May 19, 1956, show in Lincoln, there’s a man in Marina del Rey, Calif., who wants to talk to you.

Better yet, he would like to buy that poster for $25,000 cash.

“I still think there’s one left. I just got to believe,” said rock 'n roll poster collector Andrew Hawley.

He recently placed an ad in the Lincoln Journal Star under Collectible & Hobbies, showing what the poster might look like.

“It’s beautiful,” said Hawley in a phone interview.

The poster shows Elvis, who was just starting his career, with a big guitar doing his hip-shaking thing. Hawley says the same image was used to advertise shows in cities along the tour. The only differences are the dates and locations.

One hundred posters, 22 inches by 27 inches, were printed up for the May 19 Lincoln show and a similar number for the Omaha show held the next night, Hawley said, and they were tacked on telephone poles and other places.

About 3,000 “wildly screaming teen-agers” showed up to hear Elvis at the University of Nebraska Coliseum, according to a story printed in the Sunday Journal and Star.

“Presley, garbed in yellow sports coat with black stripes, a blue iridescent shirt with a kimono collar, black pegged trousers, and hair coiffured in ‘ducktails’ and sideburns, has the young Lincolnites in such a frenzied pitch they tried to grab him off stage,” wrote staff writer Paul Means.

Hawley said he also collects early concert posters for Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, who played in Omaha during the ’60s.

So how come they’re worth so much?

“There just valuable for people who care,” Hawley said.

Since he placed the ad, Hawley has received some calls from the Lincoln area, but nobody has come up with a poster, yet.

Hawley said he is serious about the offer and will pay in person. He can be reached at 1-310-346-1965.

Now if that doesn’t get you all shook up …

Reach Algis J. Laukaitis at (402) 473-7243 or alaukaitis@journalstar.com.