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StoriesKurt Cobain’s DOD Grunge Pedal seen on History Channel’s ‘Pawn Stars’
📅 Published : - Author : Dan Kopilovic
📌 Posted under: Memorabilia
You would be surprised how often a piece of gear pops up for sale with the seller claiming it used to belong to one of the huge rock stars of the past century. The bigger the star, the bigger the potential cash in pocket.
One of the hottest rock stars in this regard is certainly the late Kurt Cobain. Belonging to more recent history, by many considered to be the final breath of rock and roll, Kurt was the symbol of the 90s and the voice of Generation Y.
We recently wrote about a Teisco Audition guitar, or more precisely – a body of a Tiesco Audition guitar, which was sold on the Discovery Channels show ‘Final Offer’. That guitar was in a relatively grey area, meaning that we haven’t been able to connect it directly to Kurt via any sort of photographic evidence, even though the owner himself was pretty sure of its history.
Similar to that story, in a video posted on History’s YouTube channel on December 8, 2015, the pawn shop owner is presented with a guitar pedal allegedly used by Kurt Cobain in 1993. The bloke that’s selling it also slides out a letter he got from Earnie Bailey, Kurt’s guitar tech, who himself seems somewhat reluctant (understandably) to confirm its authenticity, but as far as these things go – this all looks pretty good so far.
The side of the pedal has a white sticker on it, reading “12.29 – 9.44”. According to the letter from Earnie, the former is a date, while the latter is the volts. According to the LiveNirvana website, which we also used on our write-up on Kurt’s equipment, on December 29th Nirvana played at San Diego Sports Arena, San Diego, CA.
Fortunately, a video of the whole concert is available on YouTube, and at around the 29-minute mark, Kurt mentions the pedal by name, and based on the audience’s reaction (the camera wasn’t on him) he throws it off the stage.
To summarize the story – the seller ends up asking $5,000 for the pedal, but after consulting Jesse-the-tat-guy, the pawn star dude himself thinks $500 ought to be enough. To everyone’s surprise, the seller denies the offer ten times below the asking price and walks out of the shop with the pedal still in his pocket (good job seller guy).
All the TV show nonsense aside though, it’s always fun and interesting to see how a piece of gear from more than 30 years ago is still being taken care of, just because it used to belong to some as significant to the world of music as Kurt. If you happen to come across more stories like this online, or even better – you happen to own something similar yourself, be sure to tell us. We’d love to take a look at it.
You can see the grayish pedal on the left and the sans amp pedal next to it
Watching the rehearsals he mainly uses his sans amp classic pedal
Kurt used a grunge pedal during the live and loud concert well it was in his effects chain if he actually used it in any songs is another question, you can see in the DVD extras of the concert rehearsals
“Generation Y?” You mean Gen X. Gen Y are called Millennials now. Gen X were 20 somethings and teens at the time. Kurt was speaking to us. He was a Gen X “hero.” And $500 is more than reasonable. This is not some Martin prototype rarity that once toured with Elvis Presley. It’s a throw away pedal that might or might not have been one of a hundred thrown to audiences on the tour as part of a show routine.
I mean, I guess that’s also correct. If you wanna go and look at the statistics, Gen Y an Gen X are within 3% – https://www.statista.com/statistics/992200/enjoyability-of-nirvana-by-generation-us/ . I think I should’ve just left it at “voice of a generation”.
I wouldn’t agree about $500. The buyer is obviously expecting to sell it for a lot more, and he’s ripping the guy off. Find a NIrvana fan with cash, and he’ll probably throw thousands at you for it. However insignificant to Kurt, it’s still an important piece of memorabilia to many.
1981 is almost universally considered the first birth year of the Millennials. That puts the oldest of them at 10-years-old when Smells Like Teen Spirit hit. On the other hand, Gen-Xers (Kurt was one of us), ranged in age from 11 to about 27. Kurt sang about all the same shit the “Latch-Key Generation” (Gen-Xers) were going through, and/or had encountered. Gen-X was the disaffected generation those songs described. Drugs, sex, depression, boredom, even pregnancy. I sincerely do not believe that Kurt Cobain was aiming songs about Courtney Love’s uterus at ten-year-olds. And they were not the ones buying CDs and concert tickets. We were.
I stand by the $500. You can’t go into a pawn shop expecting a good deal in the first place. You go in knowing they are going to try to turn it around at a significant markup. But that means, in this case, about $900 – $1000. By asking for $500, the guy is basically admitting he will try to get a grand for it. $5000 is insane. If you can find me a Nirvana fan that will hand out that kind of cash for that pedal, I will eat this computer. The market simply would not sustain that, with the one possible exception of a Christies Auction on a crazy day where two random guys with a crap ton of cash had a few too many martinis.
I actually went onto their store site to see how much they were selling it for but then I watched the entire clip and saw they didn’t buy it off the guy.
Jesse is knowledgable but he obviously knows nothing about the Grunge stuff and its a good thing the guy didn’t sell since we all know, he could have gotten way more for it if indeed it was Kurt’s old DOD pedal.
So where’s the pedal today? I’m pretty sure he sold it eventually?
Yeah, if legit, $500 is a ridiculously small number to offer for it. No idea if he eventually sold it, I was kind of hoping he would somehow end up reading this article through Google and we’ll find out from the man himself, but no luck so far. Cheers.
Actually my brother now owns it. He bought it from the guy for a little less than he was asking. Hoping to auction it off in the next few years.
And for everyone on this thread saying it’s only worth $500, a broken pedal used by Kurt recently sold for $9,000.
Kurt Cobain’s DOD FX69 Grunge pedal has sold at auction for $16,000, as part of Julien’s Auctions Music Icons 2021 event.
What was the name of the show? Or the youtube name
Pawn stars, series 15 episode 1. Its on history channel right now.
The nirvana show is https://youtu.be/udisQiJ2UxU