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On the second anniversary of his passing, Owsley “Bear” Stanley Platinum moon medallion is up for sale. Los Angeles, Calif. – Before he was killed in a 2011 car accident, Owsley “Bear” Stanley settled down to carve wearable art and sculptures – quite a distance from his days with the Grateful Dead. And one of his rarest, Platinum moon medallions is currently up for auction on the second anniversary of his death, March 12. “It's a rare piece of Grateful Dead memorabilia,” said Steven Woo. “In fact, extremely rare because this is made from platinum, a precious metal that Bear did not prefer to use in his carvings, compared to gold or silver.” Born as Augustus Owsley Stanley III, he was eventually labeled as the “LSD Millionaire” during the 1960s and became a significant addition to the counterculture movement. Oddly enough, his roots didn't begin on shady street corners or backroom drug deals. Stanley was born into a family where his grandfather was a Kentucky governor and U.S. senator, so he grew up in Los Angeles and Arlington, Virginia. However, he was thrown out of military school for getting drunk in the eighth grade and dropped out at 18. Somehow Stanley was accepted to the University of Virginia to study engineering before he went into the Air Force, specializing in electronics and radar. After bouncing around jet propulsion labs, radio and television jobs, he went to UC Berkeley and found gold in the library. He found the recipe for LSD in one of the journals and the rest is history! Stanley became an underground legend because of the special LSD used by Jimi Hendrix during his groundbreaking performance in Monterrey. Eventually, he became one of the sound engineers for the Grateful Dead and progressed with him into musical history. And his experience with the Grateful Dead inspired the memorabilia being sold on eBay. The Platinum Moon medallion is die struck in .999 platinum and measures 25mm in size. Stanley would rarely work with platinum because of its complexity to create the right shape and design, as well as the high value of the metal. At that time of creating this piece of Grateful Dead memorabilia, platinum was more than double the price of gold. “It's a beautiful piece of Grateful Dead memorabilia, even if the Dead didn't create it,” Steven Woo said. “To wear a platinum medallion that was crafted by the same guy who mastered and engineered the Dead's music … that's just awesome!” For more information about the platinum Grateful Dead memorabilia piece, visit http://goo.gl/fj1Zk.
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