The drumhead used by John Bonham between 1973 and 1975 sold at auction in the US for $87,500 on April 17, months after it sold at auction in the UK for £32,000.
The drumhead originally surfaced at Omega Auctions in the UK, where it sold for £32,000 on September 17 to a US-based collector. The drumhead originally had an estimate between £3,000 and £5,000.
Last year, Simon Michalak went public as the owner of the item in a letter of provenance published in the auction listing.
“In 1987 I was working for the Showstars Crewing Company at Edwin Shirley Trucking in West Ham, and we were involved in clearing a number of shipping containers and storage units,” he wrote. “The order was to take everything out and ‘burn it’, which we did with numerous items, including Alice Cooper’s guillotine and disappearing cabinet! However, when we found the Led Zeppelin flight cases and one was full of drum skins, I asked if I could ‘take all of these home’ as I was playing drums at the time.”
“Permission granted, skins taken home – including this one. It was only this year (2024) that I turned the skin 180 degrees and realised that it was indeed the 1975 Song Remains The Same skin. As any Bonham enthusiasts will know, only plain white front heads were used both before and after these shows. The skin also shows the marks made by microphones hitting it during the shows.”
Michalak wrote in a post on Led Zeppelin’s official forum on September 15 that he had decided to sell the drum skin because “it’s far too important an object to be left in a corner gathering dust” and “I need a new kitchen”.
Following the sale, the drumhead was shipped to the US where the buyer decided to sell it. It was listed for sale through the US auction firm Heritage Auctions.
With the 28.8% buyer fees charged on the hammer price by Omega Auctions, the US-based collector needed the drumhead to sell for at least $54,000 to avoid making a loss.
The drumhead reached a $70,000 hammer price at auction on April 17, bringing the total amount paid by the new buyer to $87,500 including buyer fees.
Simon Michalak say’s “it was indeed the 1975 Song Remains The Same skin.” The Song Remains the Same was filmed in 1973 and came out at the end of 1976, so in 1975 The song Remains The Same was still in progress and wasn’t a film or album that year.