Punk tops the bill at Christie's pop culture sale

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three decades after the Sex Pistols, The Clash and the Buzzcocks played London's Screen on the Green together, nostalgic punk fans will have a chance to buy memorabilia at auction on Monday in New York.

For the first time, Christie's auction house is focusing a large portion of its fall pop culture sale on punk, with some rock memorabilia and designer toys also for sale.

A handwritten flyer for a midnight Screen on the Green concert in 1976 is expected to fetch $3,000 to $4,000 and a promotional poster for the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" is likely to go for $2,000 to $3,000.

Punk memorabilia is gaining in popularity as the items become more scarce and punk establishes itself in pop culture history, Christie's head of pop culture Simeon Lipman said.

Art auctions at Christie's have fallen short of estimates in recent months, weighed down by the financial crisis.

But Christie's hopes to draw a different, younger crowd of buyers with this auction, Lipman said.

"This type of memorabilia has no investment potential," he said. "It's the nostalgia that drives these sales."

Lipman said Christie's is trying to keep estimates conservative and he pointed out that the lots are priced lower -- ranging from $300 to $6,000 for the 120 punk memorabilia lots.

Music fans can buy the original artwork for the Beastie Boys' 1986 album "License to Ill," estimated at $20,000 to $30,000, or a bass guitar played by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain for $60,000 to $80,000.

Designer toys, which were first featured in Christie's June pop culture sale, are making a reappearance at the November auction.

Contemporary toys are an "up and coming" market, and a budding art movement, said Lipman.

Sets of multi-colored busts of Beethoven and Ho Chi Minh by Frank Kozik ($3,000 to $4000) are popular items, as are action figures by Suckadelic ($300 to $500).

(Reporting by Rebekah Kebede)