The first Nirvana record ever played on the radio, a test pressing of the band’s cover song “Love Buzz,” sold for $58,560 at Goldin Auctions on Wednesday.
The pressing from the band, three years before the iconic “Nevermind” album, was one of only 10 copies made and one of six documented.
This particular copy comes from Scott Vanderpool, an employee of Sub Pop, a well-known indie label out of Seattle.
“I met (Sub Pop co-founder) Jon Poneman at KCMU, where all three of us were volunteer DJs,” Vanderpool said in a letter provided to the auction house. “It was handed to me by Jon seconds after it arrived in the mail from the pressing plant.”
Vanderpool said the test pressing, from November 1988, was then put on the air at KCMU, the student station of the University of Washington, marking the first time one of the band’s songs appeared on the radio.
Want more stories like this? Subscribe to the cllct newsletter and follow cllct on X and Instagram.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.