Grunge music, which combines punk and heavy metal, is an alternative rock style that started forming in the mid-1980s. The style of music reached the pinnacle of its popularity in the 1990s with Nirvana leading the flannel covered charge.

Lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, drummer Dave Grohl, and bassist Krist Novoselic formed their trio in 1990 and quickly became the poster boys for the cynical mindset associated with Generation X. After building a fanbase in the Northwest, the band became a global sensation with their album Nevermind, led by the grunge anthem, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Nirvana struck a chord with the youth of the ‘90s on other songs like “Come As You Are,” “In Bloom,” “Heart-Shaped Box,” and “Lithium.”

The band’s impact on pop culture in such a short window of time and their mystique bolstered by Cobain’s untimely death in 1994 have made Nirvana items, especially ones associated with Cobain, very popular in the collecting market. The band’s fans and music collectors now have the opportunity to bid on 30 Nirvana items in Hake’s Auction #242.

Hake’s is selling a guitar that Cobain stage used and smashed during a Nirvana concert at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. The show was held in January 1991, months before the band would record Nevermind, the album that made them international superstars. The guitar is a left-handed Memphis Stratocaster that Cobain used to play “Endless Nameless” as the closing number of the set. As Grohl and Novoselic continued to play, Cobain smashed the guitar with a hammer. After the show ended, a concert attendee took the destroyed guitar, then gifted it to a friend who owned it ever since.

The iconic smashed guitar is joined by many other grunge items in Hake’s Auction #242, including the Nirvana original mechanical master art concert poster. It advertises the important concert at the OK Hotel in Seattle in April ’91, when Nirvana debuted their new song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

The “Eight Songs for Greg Sage and the Wipers” box set is signed by Cobain, Grohl, and Courtney Love. The set of 7” records were part of a 6,000 copy box set with several different vinyl colors in an exterior box designed by Mike King at Crash Designs. The Nirvana sleeve is signed “Kurdt” by Cobain and “David” by Grohl, and the Hole sleeve is signed and inscribed by Love to Steve Hanford, the drummer of Poison Idea.

The Incesticide LP signed by Cobain is the first US pressing marbled blue vinyl record. The 12” record was limited to 15,000 copies that was originally released in December 1992. Cobain boldly signed “Kurdt” in black felt tip marker on the original sleeve; it comes with the original printed inner sleeve as well.

Hake’s has two “Sliver” vinyl records signed by Cobain with his usual signature, “Kurdt.” One is the 7” single Sub Pop first US pressing released in September 1990, which is housed in the original fold open sleeve with the attached subscription form for the Sub Pop Singles Club. The other is a 12” single Tupelo first UK pressing vinyl that was released in January 1991 and distributed in Germay by Routh Trade GmbH and the UK by Revolver.

Nirvana highlights continue with a Melvins, Nirvana, and Machine 1990 Tacoma, WA concert poster, a rare 1991 Nevermind tour crew long sleeve shirt, a circa 1990 Sub Pop tour blank concert poster with art by Jeff Ross, Bundle of Hiss and Nirvana Seattle, WA 1988 concert poster, and a Screaming Trees and Nirvana “It Came from Up North” 1990 Portland, OR concert poster.

Hake’s Auction #242 is now open for bids at hakes.com, and will close on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 19-20.