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Alton Kelley co-created the visual language of psychedelic rock before the Dead had left the Bay Area, the Fillmore posters, the skull and roses. By the eighties he was still drawing for the band, and this shirt is his.A skeletal hand grips a big, glowing apple on the front, New York spelled out beside it in a wobbling rainbow outline; the Grateful Dead wordmark runs down the back in the same style. Navy shirt, bold color separation, no fading.Graphic is sharp with strong color throughout.Size XL · MintAs with any vintage garment, please expect minor signs of age even in high-grade pieces — see photos for a full visual record.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

$200-500

$500+

Under $200

1983 Grateful Dead New York T-Shirt — Alton Kelley Big Apple, Size XL

Twenty-four vintage Grateful Dead t-shirts — tour shirts, city-specific one-offs, tie-dyes, a local-crew-only shirt never sold to the public, and a design the band pulled and destroyed before it ever reached a show.This collection documents the remarkable growth and development of the Dead's scene as they emerged from the 1970s and made the road their home in the 1980s, claiming all America as their stage. Tour shirts are art, history, and more, talismens&nbsp;of how the band turned every concert into a work of art. This collection traces how Dead t-shirts came to be one of the most artistic and evocative signs of the band's identity, art that reminds us all of the transformative nature of the Grateful Dead. This auction offers a selection of shirts never collected together in this condition and range.Every lot is individually photographed front, back, and tag, with condition called out honestly in each listing — vintage pieces are graded on their own terms, and high-grade doesn't mean flawless. See each item's photos for the full visual record.No reserve. Every lot opens at $49.95.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

This one predates the Rex Foundation by two years, a Pre-Rex benefit run with proceeds going to the Pacific Alliance, part of the anti-nuclear movement the Dead lent their name to well before benefit shirts were a routine part of touring. Mouse and Kelley, the poster-art duo behind the band's core visual identity, drew it.Black shirt, a circular emblem front and center: a skull holding a rose in its teeth, "Stop Nuclear Power" arched above, "Grateful Dead" scripted below. Small and direct, built more like a protest shirt than tour merch.Runs small even for the marked size — tagged Small (34-36), but fits closer to a modern kids' or petite small. Measurements are worth confirming before bidding.Size S · Mint · Runs smallAs with any vintage garment, please expect minor signs of age even in high-grade pieces — see photos for a full visual record.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

1981 Grateful Dead Stop Nuclear Power T-Shirt — Mouse & Kelley, Size S

The Dead played very few shows outside North America. In November 1982 they played the Jamaica World Music Festival at the Bob Marley Performing Arts Center in Montego Bay, on a bill with the Wailers, Toots &amp; the Maytals, Gladys Knight &amp; the Pips, and Jimmy Cliff, one of the only times the band performed outside the continent.Merchandise from that trip is scarce and doesn't look like typical tour gear. This is a collared knit polo in cream white, with a small screen-printed circular graphic on the left chest rather than a full-back design. It reads more like something a promoter handed out than a t-shirt stand item.Clean overall, with the fabric still bright.Size S · Near Mint · Polo, collared.As with any vintage garment, please expect minor signs of age even in high-grade pieces — see photos for a full visual record.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

1982 Grateful Dead Jamaica World Music Festival Polo Shirt, Size S

A fiddler in a rowboat, printed in red, an odd, folkloric image that reads more like a woodcut broadside than rock merchandise, which is exactly the sort of thing the Dead's art was doing in the early eighties.Long sleeves are the harder find. They cost more new, so fewer were printed, and the ones that sold got worn every cold night of the tour and every winter after. A 1983 long sleeve that never went through that is a genuinely scarce object.Both sleeves and body clean.Size M · Mint · Long sleeve.As with any vintage garment, please expect minor signs of age even in high-grade pieces — see photos for a full visual record.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

1983 Grateful Dead Long Sleeve T-Shirt — Red Fiddler in a Boat, Size M

Rick Griffin drew some of the Dead's most recognized artwork, including the 1969 Aoxomoxoa album cover, and stayed closely identified with the band until his death in 1991. This piece pairs his Minuteman image, a skull draped in an American flag, sword in hand, with "Twenty Years So Far", marking two decades since the band's 1965 start.The back reads "Local Crew" in plain block type. This wasn't sold at the merch table; it was made for the people working the tour, which makes surviving copies harder to find than the fan-facing version of the same design.Multiple small stains are visible on the shirt, pictured for reference; the graphic and lettering are otherwise intact.Size XL · Good · Local crew shirt, not sold to the public.As with any vintage garment, please expect minor signs of age even in high-grade pieces — see photos for a full visual record.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

1985 Grateful Dead Local Crew T-Shirt — Rick Griffin Minuteman, Size XL

The band's Chinese New Year run at Oakland's Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium, February 18-20, 1985, became an annual kickoff to the touring year, this one landing in the Year of the Ox and marking the Dead's 20th year as a band. A Chinese orchestra opened the shows, and a dragon dance wound through the crowd during Drums.The design keeps it simple: a blue ox rendered on a black panel, Grateful Dead lettered beside it. Long sleeve, blue body.There are stains on one sleeve, pictured for reference; the graphic itself is unaffected.Size M · Fair · Long sleeve.As with any vintage garment, please expect minor signs of age even in high-grade pieces — see photos for a full visual record.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

1985 Grateful Dead Chinese New Year Run T-Shirt — Year of the Ox, Size M

The walking, sneaker-footed lightning bolt on the front is the Dead's own riff on Reddy Kilowatt, the cartoon mascot electric utilities started using in 1926 to market electricity as safe and friendly. Inside the band, Reddy Kilowatt was also Phil Lesh's own nickname, earned for his restless, high-voltage energy, according to Dead biographer Dennis McNally. Putting him on a 20th-anniversary tour shirt, flanked by the "65" and "85" on the front, reads as an inside joke made public.Spring Tour 1985 was a season of theaters and small arenas rather than the football stadiums that came later, and the back maps that spring's Northeast leg inside a star-and-stripes emblem, with a Steal Your Face marking the tour's start.Blue long-sleeve tour shirts from this run turn up rarely and almost always washed thin. This one keeps its shape: the blue is still saturated, the print is unbroken, and the collar and cuffs have their original form.If you are building an eighties tour set, the long sleeves are the pieces that usually stay missing.Size M · Mint · Long sleeve.As with any vintage garment, please expect minor signs of age even in high-grade pieces — see photos for a full visual record.Domestic shipping is $20 per item. International shipping will be calculated and invoiced separately after the auction closes.

1983 Grateful Dead New York T-Shirt — Alton Kelley Big Apple, Size XL

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