In the run-up to Elvis’ 75th Birthday celebration, B&H Productions will auction a private photo shoot of Elvis Presley that has never before been printed or sold.
From The Press Release:
On Monday, April 13th at 3:00PM PST, B&H Productions will be launching an international eBay auction of ten never-before-seen images of Elvis Presley. Images of Elvis that have never been published or seen by the public are very rare.
That these are color images – which were seldom taken of Elvis in 1956 – greatly increases their rarity and value. These ten photographs were taken at a private photo shoot while Elvis was in Las Vegas for his first performances there in 1956.
On April 23, 1956, 21–year–old Elvis Aron Presley performed in Las Vegas for the first time at the New Frontier Hotel. Young in his career, he was wildly popular on the radio but had yet to reach the national stardom he would achieve only months later. Between performances, he went to a local club and heard Freddy Bell and the Bell Boys perform a tune called “Hound Dog”. Elvis performed his own ground-breaking version of “Hound Dog“ live on the Milton Berle Show a few months later on June 5th to 40 million viewers, and the resulting hip-grinding fanfare is history.
During Elvis' stay in Las Vegas, the editor of Dig Magazine, Ed Hummel, traveled there to interview and photograph him for a cover story for the magazine. Several photos taken at this photo shoot were used in the magazine, but these ten images were not used and were placed in storage. They remained in storage until four years ago when Mr. Hummel gave them to his friend, Bob Striegel of B&H Productions, as a gift. Following Mr. Hummel’s death in late 2006, Mr. Striegel copyrighted the images, and has continued to keep them safely in storage. Copyright will be transferred to the buyer upon purchase in this auction.
These 120mm transparent color film negatives are in excellent condition, and the color and image quality is superb. As Elvis’ 75th birthday approaches, this auction provides a very exciting opportunity for Elvis Presley collectors worldwide. The eBay auction will be a tenday auction, ending at 3PM PST on April 23, 2009 – 53 years to the day of his first performance at the New Frontier, when they were taken.
B&H Productions owns several rare, vintage photo collections, and makes selected items available to the public for purchase at auctions and on auction websites, such as eBay.
B&H has sold over 700 vintage photographs on eBay, and is proud to have received 100% positive feedback and a silver power-seller status.