(MONEY Magazine) – Can it really be a quarter-century since half a million fans converged on Route 17B for Woodstock, the three days of peace, music and mud that defined a generation? Yes -- and along with the 25th anniversary come plans for two all- star reunions commencing Aug. 13, one at the original Yasgur dairy farm site in Bethel, N.Y. and the other some 50 miles northeast in Saugerties, N.Y. Such restagings have sparked a boom in collecting vintage artifacts from the legendary 1969 event. Woodstockiana is a growing subgenre of the $5 million to $10 million rock-' n'-roll memorabilia field, which flourishes on cable shopping networks, at auction and at collector conventions. A clue to amplified Woodstock interest surfaced in June 1993, when Sotheby's in New York City sold an eight-item lot, including two festival posters, two tickets, a bathrobe patterned with a crowd scene and a program for $2,700 -- more than triple the $600 to $800 presale estimate." Woodstock was a milestone in a lot of people's lives," says David Henkel, author of The Official Price Guide to Rock and Roll Magazines, Posters and Memorabilia (House of Collectibles, $12.50) and operator of the Rock and Roll Collectors Hotline (201-641-7212). "They keep trying to relive the experience through collecting." The category is led by such one-of-a-kind items as Jimi Hendrix's signed contract to play at Woodstock, which fetched an electric $12,100 when it was auctioned by Sotheby's in December 1991, double its presale estimate but not quite the $18,000 his band got to perform. At the low end are festival tickets, which go for as little as $20. In between, you won't find a plethora of objects, but that was part of Woodstock's charm: It was unprecedented and blissfully uncommercial. Mainly, it's the paper ephemera -- advertising posters, tickets, programs and photographs taken by amateurs and professionals -- that are eagerly being sought by collectors. Indeed, the original bold red poster, featuring a peace dove perched on a guitar and a lineup of artists the likes of which will never again be seen (Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone and more), is an international icon. The simple design was conceived and executed over a weekend by New York City artist Arnold Skolnick, who, of hasty necessity, cut the dove and guitar-clutching fingers out freehand with a razor blade. Fifteen or so years ago, reports Henkel, pristine original posters barely fetched $20. Today they go for $500 to $750, and occasionally, a mint- condition one commands $1,000 at auction. For Woodstock's 20th anniversary in 1989, Skolnick signed and numbered 130 of his designs, which were then boosted in value by being framed with wood from a barn taken down on the Yasgur farm site. These were sold for $600 to $700 at the time and are worth close to $1,000 now. Prices are expected to top $3,000 within 10 years. But beware: The familiar poster has been bootlegged several times. Only an original will gain in value, says Bob Rountree, who publishes the Woodstocker' s Journal, a free newsletter about anniversary events (P.O. Box 4353, Deerfield Beach, Fla. 33442; telephone or fax 305-570-7879). Make sure you buy from a reputable poster or antiques dealer, or inspect the poster through a printer's loupe, or magnifying glass. Philip Cushway, who owns San Francisco's ArtRock (800-262-7249), a catalogue and retail operation, advises buyers to concentrate on the "3 days of peace & music" design. On a bootleg poster, he says, the "3," "of" and "&" will show visible dots -- telltale signs of a four-color process print job. On original lithograph posters, lines are solid yellow. "There may be original posters out there that don't follow this rule," cautions Cushway, "but I haven't seen them." There is also an earlier poster designed in the then popular psychedelic style, which festival promoters Woodstock Ventures had produced for an unused site in Wallkill, N.Y. (see above, left). In riotous hot pink, aqua and green, the 14-inch-by-22-inch predecessor poster depicts a woman against a background of birds and cupids. "They printed 10,000 that then sat for years in a warehouse," says the artist, David Byrd, who now works as an illustrator at Warner Bros. in L.A. ArtRock, which claims access to "a couple of thousand," lists the posters at $50 apiece. Triton Gallery in New York City (800-626-6674) sells them, signed by Byrd, for $350 each. Original festival tickets still crowd the market. Most of the distinctive cardboard passes, with their celestial graphics, were intended for sale at the gate, but the crush of festivalgoers swiftly turned Woodstock into a free event. The $18 three-day tickets were sold in advance; $24 three-day tickets, slated for purchase at the gate, were never sold at all. There were also some unsold $7 and $8 single-day tickets. Rountree sells three-day passes for $40, single-day tickets for $20. "Mine are underpriced but not by much," he says. This summer's hoopla, he believes, may lead to unrealistic prices for tickets. Few originals remain of the 52-page four-color festival program. The historical explanation: Along with tens of thousands of vehicles, they got stuck in a traffic jam. The festival ended by dawn on Monday; programs showed up after the music died. "They dumped them in a corner of the field," says William Lubinsky, who worked as a festival stage manager and now deals in Woodstock memorabilia, "and most of them got bulldozed." Programs are therefore prized while prices run from $125 to $750 each, depending on the dealer and whether they have any desirable Woodstock mud. About five years ago, prices were further confused when an entrepreneur reproduced the program -- tissue paper insert and all -- as a novelty item. A separate disclaimer could be removed, making it easy to be fooled. Again, your best protection is to buy only from established dealers.

Sotheby's expert on entertainment memorabilia, Robert Levine, prefers "more personal, unique items." Photographs of the event, such as two prints by photojournalist Fred W. McDarrah (see page 119), auctioned last month, were expected by Levine to command $600 to $800. A blue nylon crew jacket, with the dove and guitar logo appliqued on the back, was thought likely to fetch $1,000 to $1,500. The jackets are extremely rare. Only a few dozen were made, says < Lubinsky, who recently turned down a $5,000 offer for his, which was worn by Country Joe on stage. "I lent him my jacket when it started to rain," he remembers. This summer's events will bring a deluge of freshly minted items, from key chains and coins to watches, medallions and an endless supply of T-shirts. This time around, you won't get in with peace and love: 250,000 celebrants at about $135 a clip are expected at the official Woodstock '94 in Saugerties; 80,000 at $150 each at Bethel '94. The famous poster design is being trotted out as limited-edition lithographs hand-signed by Carlos Santana, Grace Slick, Country Joe and Wavy Gravy, the original emcee. Priced at $125 each, ArtRock is printing 10,000. "It will go up in value within the first year," promises Cushway. Such calculations are at least 25 years away from the innocence with which original festivalgoers gathered up their souvenir bits of muddy paper. As Lubinsky puts it: "We didn't even know it was gonna be memorabilia."