TheBuzz Erika Engle

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This Tom's treasure is now available online

NEARLY 1,200 pieces of Tom Moffatt's event promotion history is now for sale online by the same company that purchased the famed Bill Graham collection. Never mind remembering the 1960s, but if you were not around back then, Graham was a legendary concert promoter tied to the biggest acts who played in the biggest halls of the day -- notably, Graham's Fillmore East and Fillmore West in New York and San Francisco.

Moffatt has been a concert promoter in Hawaii since his days as a radio personality in the 1950s and has compiled masses of stuff.

On the Net: » www.wolfgangsvault.com

A collector who previously bought memorabilia from Moffatt introduced him to Bill Sagan, purchaser of the Graham collection, and the two hit it off, said Barbara Saito, general manager of A Tom Moffatt Production Inc.

Moffatt, initially reluctant, sold off a chunk of his long-stored inventory to Sagan for sale on e-commerce site Wolfgang's Vault.

He warmed to the idea because he got the sense that Wolfgang's people "would respect the stuff and appreciate it for what it was, not just for rock and roll, but for our state," Saito said.

If you never have been in Moffatt's office -- awed and slack-jawed because of the indescribable collection of memorabilia lining every conceivable space -- the Web site will be a joyous treat. It is a virtual walk down memory lane and music genre boulevard. You'll find brain cells you thought you'd killed.

Posters, tickets, handbills and backstage passes for generations of musical favorites fill the site.

Many of the posters seek bids, such as a "Show of Stars" concert featuring the Five Satins on Nov. 15, 1957. An autographed KPOI radio-Hayley Mills poster is priced at $1,455.

You'll need time to peruse the vast array of acts, from The Fab Four (you know, The Beatles) to Elvis; from Erroll Garner to Frank Sinatra; from Led Zeppelin to James Taylor when he had long hair; to the May 30, 1969 appearance of Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Waikiki Shell. The Hendrix handbill goes for $925.

Omigosh, is that Menudo? Yup. A 1985 concert ticket for the Puerto Rican teen-pop boy-band goes for $10. Stuff that pictures those cute faces costs more.

A poster for the 1972 El Chicano-Buddy Miles double bill at the Hilo Civic Auditorium is $525, but it's only $65 for a handbill of the 1973 Doobie Brothers and Tower of Power show at the old H.I.C. Arena.

A poster for a New Year's Eve party to welcome 1973 at Hilton Hawaiian Village promised a midnight buffet and two dance bands headlined by Carol Kai, before she had the "e" at the end of her name. The poster is $265.

Clicking through the site may clear cobwebs from the murky-brain recesses in which the acts you've long since forgotten now reside. Remember Mandrill? Savoy Brown? The Kasuals?

It's not all music -- you'll find ballet icon Rudolf Nureyev and magician Franz Harary there.

Moffatt also used to bring in closed-circuit telecasts of big-time fights, before everybody had cable.

A poster for the George Foreman-Ken Norton heavyweight championship fight on March 26, 1974, is selling for $135.

For all these years, some of the stuff was at Moffatt's office, "but most of it was at my house ... it has a couple attics, so I just took a lot of it home and left it there," Moffatt said.

He always knew there was value in it, not just for him monetarily, but for sentimental or enthusiastic collectors.