Photos courtesy of Jim Salzer Jim Salzer has posters from the many shows he promoted in the '60s. His last show was a Led Zeppelin-Jethro Tull performance in 1971.

In a dark nook of Jim Salzer's warehouse, through a very narrow closet, is a treasure trove of '60s concert memorabilia.

There, in stack after stack after stack on shelves, Salzer keeps old posters from 1960s rock 'n' roll shows that he used to promote. The names on the posters, in swirling letter patterns, arty designs and psychedelic colors, read like a '60s honor roll — Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield, the Yardbirds, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, Blue Cheer and such.

Salzer isn't even sure how many he has — maybe 50,000, maybe double that. Some are originals; many are reprints. Some have Salzer's name on them. Salzer sells the reprints starting as low as $25.

Interest in old concert posters has become a very strong market in recent years, attracting the attention of Goldmine magazine, the Los Angeles Times and others. Original posters can fetch four figures on the Internet.

"It's just a really good collectible," Salzer said. "And part of it is the scarcity; they are getting more and more scarce."

For a guy who claims to dislike talking of the past, Salzer sure hangs on to quite a bit of it. His warehouse would make museum curators remove their spectacles in envy.

Salzer has old concert tickets — also in big demand these days — as well as old postcards they used to hand out at shows and even original contracts that he hammered out with bands.

But there's more. His office is right next to a 1920s-vintage soda fountain parlor; he even has a 1923 metal clapboard menu that goes with it (a butterscotch sundae set you back 15 cents in those days).

Salzer bought the fountain from a collector in Acton, then was surprised one day when a couple walked into his store and said it was the very one they used at their Nebraska establishment years earlier.

He also has several thousand 45s from the 1970s and '80s laying around in boxes, and a collection of arcade games, some from the old steamship that used to go out to Catalina Island.

One thing he doesn't keep there is his 1949 Chrysler "woody" convertible, which Salzer says is now worth about $100,000. He still uses it; on a weekend day earlier this month, with no other wheels at hand, Salzer drove it to the movies.

— Brett Johnson