The original hand drawn KISS logo by Ace Frehley is on the auction block.
He drew it in 1973 and taped it to a pin button with the thought of designing one to sell at their shows. Paul Stanley then cleaned it up and it’s the logo they still use. Here is Paul Stanley on re-drawing the KISS logo presented to him by Ace Frehley.
“I drew it in my parents’ living room, freehand with a ruler, but without measuring. So, I did it for a poster for a dance we were doing in New York City. And, if you look on your album covers, to this day, the two S’s at the bottom are not perfectly parallel because I did it without measuring.”
In the listing for the logo, Gotta Have Rock and Roll auctions states, “Ace designed the logo in early 1973 using graph paper in order to properly draw out the perfect proportions in a consistent scale… As for condition, the paper is frail and was never kept as a collectible so there’s tiny tears all around the edges… This purchase does not come with ownership rights to the logo design and does not give you any right to make duplicate copies of the logo for resale.”
It measures 3.5 x 3.5 and comes with an Ace Frehley signed Certificate of Authenticity. The bidding starts at $50,000 at GottaHaveRockAndRoll.com and is estimated to sell for between $75- and $100,000. The auction ends April 30th.
As for the name KISS, that was Paul Stanley who came up with it. Paul Stanley on coming up with the name KISS.
“I thought that it was something that would sound familiar no matter where you were in the world. A word like that you would go, ‘Oh, I’ve heard of KISS.'”
