Stuart Buckley was bored. After walking around a car boot sale with his then-partner at the Essex County Showground in the early 2000s, he was ready to go home.
“When I convinced her it was time to go, we headed off to the rear of the park where the car was parked,” the Essex pub owner tells LedZepNews.
It was as they walked back to their car that something caught Buckley’s eye. ”Right at the back where the stalls were thin on the ground, I could see a frame with ‘Led Zeppelin’ across the top part of it,” he recalls. “It was only when I got closer, I realised it was a mirror.”
The object that had caught Buckley’s eye was a framed mirror printed with the distinctive poster for Led Zeppelin’s five performances at Earls Court in London in May 1975.
Out of curiosity, Buckley asked the stallholder how much he was selling the mirror for. The asking price was £25.
“£25 was a lot more 20, 25 years ago, but I just decided on the spot I would have it,” Buckley says. When asked what he planned to do with this large mirror, Buckley planned to display it on the wall of his home.
For more than 20 years, Buckley has displayed in his home. Within the past few months, as the fiftieth anniversary of the Earls Court concerts approached, Buckley has researched the mirror’s history and now believes it may be one of the handful of commemorative mirrors promoter Mel Bush presented Led Zeppelin with around the time of the shows.
An identical-looking mirror was sold by Bush in 2008 through the memorabilia sales website 991.com. That example was Bush’s own copy of the mirror, according to a letter he included in the lot.
“This is to certify that this Mirror was produced by me to celebrate Led Zeppelin’s Earls Court 1975. I presented a Mirror to each member of Led Zeppelin and retained this personal archive mirror, which you now own,” Bush wrote in the letter.
That mirror measured 32 by 24 inches, the website explained. Sure enough, Buckley’s mirror has the same dimensions and its wooden frame matches the frame seen on Bush’s archive mirror.
The buyer of the mirror from 991.com then appears to have sold the mirror around 2011, according to a copy of an online sale listing on Worthpoint. It’s now listed as being owned by “Chris TDB” on the website An Extra Nickel.
So if Buckley’s mirror was produced by Bush and isn’t the same item now owned by Chris TDB, was it previously owned by a member of Led Zeppelin?
It’s thought that Bush was correct when he wrote that just a handful of mirrors were produced to commemorate the Earls Court shows. While some band members may have retained their mirrors, at least one was given away to associates of the band.
Buckley is now seeking answers as to how this rare mirror ended up in a car boot sale outside the village of Great Leighs in Essex in the early 2000s.
Could it have belonged to John Bonham and was given away following his death in 1980? Or did a band member such as John Paul Jones or Robert Plant give away their mirror to an employee who later sold it on?
The mystery around Buckley’s mirror continues. It is likely, however, that the mirror is now worth more than the £25 Buckley paid in the early 2000s.
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