I love PBS’ “Antique Roadshow” where people bring in something they’ve been using as a doorstop and occasionally turns out to be some masterwork of art or design. This was the case recently as a collection of design pages for the album cover of Led Zeppelin III were recently discovered at an estate sale.
The spinning wheel cover was designed by a friend of Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page named Zacron. Zacron passed in 2012, and recently his estate held a sale where collector Joseph Robert O’Donnell stumbled upon six pages of sketches documenting the progress of the cover, along with Zacron’s handwritten instructions on how the wheel would function.
This is where the recent documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin comes into the story.
O’Donnell sold those design sketches to Led Zeppelin collector Brian Knapp. Knapp served as an archival consultant on Becoming Led Zeppelin.
In an interview with LOUDER Sound Knapp said, “Zacron was a very important artist, and his friendship and connection with Led Zeppelin are equally significant to the band’s legacy. I am pleased to add these to my collection, which I hope to exhibit at some point in the future.”
More on this disc-overy at Louder Sound.com
