Artworks by Raymond Pettibon regularly sell for thousands, but avid fans have the chance to score flyers, posters, and other ephemera featuring the American punk pioneer’s designs on the cheap in “Raymond Pettibon: The Punk Years,” a live auction set for August 22 at Wright in Chicago that’s already open for online bidding. These relics all hail from the collection of former MoMA curator and Printed Matter director David Platzker, who’s curated several Pettibon shows at his New York gallery Specific Object over the years.

“I’ve collected many of the flyers when I was in high school in L.A. in the late 1970s to 1983,” Platzker told Artnet over email, adding, “The majority of this vintage material never comes to market.”

A 1986 promotional poster by Pettibon. Courtesy of Rago Wright

Born 1957 in Hermosa Beach, Pettibon studied economics at UCLA and taught math for a beat in L.A.’s public school system before joining SST Records—which his brother Greg Ginn founded in 1978 to promote the era’s premier, ostracized punk acts, such as Black Flag, which Ginn formed in 1976. Pettibon’s sardonic, at times grotesque style drew from Francisco de Goya and William Blake alike, and rapidly became the visual identity driving California’s punk movement, spearheaded by Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, the Go-Go’s and more. Pettibon plastered his flyers all over L.A.’s street, rendering punk’s rise impossible to ignore throughout the 1980s. Some of Pettibon’s early zines compiling the original drawings behind his promotional materials appeared at the Brooklyn Museum last year.

A 1982 offset print promotional poster. Courtesy of Rago Wright

Pettibon has participated in mainstream art events like the Venice Biennale, documenta, and the Whitney Biennial over the past few decades. Last year alone, he ranked amongst the most-searched artists in Artnet’s database, and exhibited with David Zwirmer, raising that perennial question regarding whether punk sold itself out. But, as Pettibon himself told FLAUNT last year, “I am not a critic of the art world and its economics.”

A vintage, screenprinted Rip City skatedeck promoting the Black Flag album “Loose Nut.” Courtesy of Rago Wright

Fans excluded from those economics can rejoice, because “Raymond Pettibon: The Punk Years” holds over 300 potentially affordable thrills in store. The expansive auction’s six leading lots—including an electric orange skate deck promoting Black Flag’s 1985 release “Loose Nut,” and a few limited edition Black Flag posters from 1982—are all estimated to gavel at just $2,000 to $3,000. The most affordable lots include Black Flag cassettes from the 1980s, a vinyl copy of Minutemen’s “Joy” from 1981, and a 2002 press by Annihilation. They’re all estimated to go for $50 to $100.

Currently, 73 registered buyers have made bids valued at $13,400 on only a third of the sale’s lots. But, with about a week until the hammer starts coming down, the night’s still young. Numerous gems abound between those high and low poles in “Raymond Pettibon: The Punk Years,” including a copy of Pettibon’s first book of drawings, “Captive Chains” (1978), slated to fetch $800–$1,000, and an original promotional poster for Black Flag’s 1983 album “My War,” which some say topped the band’s hit debut “Damaged” to become their best release.

A 1983 offset print promotional poster. Courtesy of Rago Wright

“It’ll happen like it did in the ‘60s with the psychedelic posters,” Pettibon predicted for The Los Angeles Times back in 1984. “Once these kids start growing up and making money, it’ll be a way of recapturing their past. But at that point the art becomes dead. It’s just artifacts.”

Whether or not you believe punk was killed by the left, the right, the corporations, its fans, or its stars, the movement left an indelible impact on pop culture—and inspires revolutionaries today. “My interest revolves around Pettibon’s earliest works from 1978 and ends—logically—at the moment Black Flag broke up and Pettibon had his first solo show in NYC,” Plazker noted. Stay tuned to capture an unadulterated piece of the movement, at rates that feel decidedly punk rock.