WYATT POINDEXTER — THE AGENCY OKC & TULSA

Collector's Corner

The Obsession That Started With a Towel — My 40+ Year Journey Through Rock and Roll Memorabilia, Sports Cards, Vinyl, and the Greatest Collection You've Never Seen

By Wyatt Poindexter | Managing Partner, The Agency OKC & Tulsa

Most people who know me as a real estate agent see the listings, the luxury properties, and the professional side of what I do every day. What they may not know — although my true friends absolutely do — is that underneath all of that lives a kid from Oklahoma who has spent over forty years chasing, hunting, collecting, and deeply loving some of the most extraordinary pieces of rock and roll history, sports memorabilia, vintage vinyl, and signed collectibles that you will ever encounter in a private collection.

This is not something I talk about in every conversation. It is not something I lead with at listing appointments or client dinners. But it is as much a part of who I am as anything else in my life. And I think it is finally time to share it.

A lot of people have a hobby that recharges them. Something they do to decompress, to feel alive, to connect with something bigger than the day-to-day. Some people play golf. And golf is great — I have nothing against it. But me? I go to concerts. Over 500 of them across four decades. And every single one of them has left something behind — a memory, a story, a moment, and more often than not a piece of history that now lives in my collection.

Welcome to Collector's Corner. This is where I get to be that kid again.

Every week I will be right here highlighting different pieces from my personal collection — the stories behind them, what makes them special, what they mean to me, and what serious collectors should know about the world of music memorabilia and beyond. I cannot wait to share this with you. Let's start at the beginning.

It Started With a Towel. Seriously.

The year was 1979. The city was Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was eight years old. And my mother — God bless her — took me and my brother to see KISS.

Let me paint that picture for you properly. I was eight years old. KISS in 1979 was not a band. They were a phenomenon. They were mythological creatures who breathed fire and spat blood and played the loudest, most incredible rock and roll music I had ever heard in my eight years of existence on this earth. They were superheroes who happened to play guitars. They were everything that a young boy with an imagination and a developing obsession with music could possibly dream up — and then they were somehow real, standing on a stage in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in front of me and my brother while my mother looked on with the patient expression of a woman who had absolutely no idea what she had just unleashed.

I was completely beside myself. The lights, the fire, the volume, the spectacle — all of it was overwhelming in the best possible way. And then I saw something that changed the course of my life. Ace Frehley — the Spaceman himself — was throwing guitar picks into the crowd. Paul Stanley was doing the same. I watched those picks arc through the smoky arena air and I knew with the complete and total certainty that only an eight-year-old can possess that I needed one of those picks more than I had ever needed anything in my life.

The show ended and my mother, being the extraordinary woman she was, let us scour the arena floor looking for picks. And we found some. Right there on the floor of a Tulsa arena in 1979, I picked up my first pieces of rock and roll memorabilia and held them in my eight-year-old hands like they were made of gold.

But the night was not finished.

A few roadies came out after the show and one of them offered my mom and her friend backstage passes. My mother — and I say this with enormous love and only forty-five years of retrospective understanding — declined. She declined. I did not understand why at eight years old. I understand perfectly now. And I have never quite forgiven her. Just kidding. Mostly.

But here is the part that started everything. One of those roadies — perhaps taking pity on the wide-eyed eight-year-old standing in the arena with his guitar picks — reached into a bag and handed me Ace Frehley's white towel. The towel that Ace Frehley had used during the show. Personally handed to me by a KISS roadie in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1979.

I held that towel the entire drive home. I probably slept with it. I am not even a little bit embarrassed about this.

That towel was the beginning of everything. That single moment of generosity from a roadie in Tulsa ignited a passion for collecting rock and roll memorabilia that has burned without interruption for over forty years and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.

The Fanzine Years — When a Kid From Oklahoma Started Getting Backstage

Fast forward to the late 1980s. The music scene was extraordinary — hair metal was at its absolute peak, the Sunset Strip was producing some of the greatest rock and roll of any era, and a teenager from Oklahoma City with a serious passion for the music and a creative mind had figured out something remarkable. If you published a fanzine — a fan-produced magazine about a band — the bands and their management would actually talk to you. They would send you things. They would put you on guest lists. They would give you passes. They would invite you backstage.

So that is exactly what I did.

I started producing fanzines for my favorite bands and sending them out with the kind of relentless enthusiasm that only someone who truly loves what they are doing can sustain. And it worked. Bands responded. Management responded. Record labels responded. Suddenly the kid from Oklahoma City who had started his collection with Ace Frehley's towel was getting free tickets, backstage passes, and meet and greets with some of the biggest names in rock and roll. And at every single one of those meetings and every single one of those backstage encounters I was collecting. Albums signed. Photographs personalized. Drum heads dedicated. Guitar picks handed directly to me by the people who had just played them on stage.

The collection that started with a towel and a handful of arena floor guitar picks had become something genuinely special — and I was only just getting started.

Over 500 Concerts — And Every Single One Left Something Behind

Here is where I want to slow down for a moment and really paint the picture of what over five hundred concerts across four decades actually looks like — because I think it is easy to read a number like that and not fully appreciate what it means in terms of experiences, relationships, and the extraordinary things that happen when you show up for the music over and over and over again throughout your entire life.

Some people collect golf courses. I collect concerts. And I would not trade a single one.

Let's talk about KISS first because they are where it all began. I have seen KISS approximately 29 times across every era and every lineup of the band. Twenty-nine times. From that first show in Tulsa in 1979 as an eight-year-old who was barely tall enough to see the stage, to the final bow of the band's farewell tour as one of the most decorated and beloved rock acts in history. I have watched them evolve, change, return, reinvent, and ultimately take their final curtain call. Every single show added something to the collection and something to the story.

But the single most extraordinary KISS moment of my entire twenty-nine shows — and I genuinely had to think hard about that because there have been so many remarkable nights — did not happen to me. It happened to my son Cameron. We were at a KISS show, and Paul Stanley — the Starchild, one of the founding members of the band that started my entire journey in a Tulsa arena in 1979 — reached out into the crowd and pulled Cameron up onto the stage. My son. Standing on a KISS stage. Right next to Paul Stanley. Waving out to eighteen thousand people who were roaring back at him from the floor and the stands. Cameron standing up there with Paul, grinning, probably in the same state of complete and total disbelief that I was in at eight years old on that arena floor in Tulsa.

I do not have adequate words for what it felt like to watch that moment happen. The kid who started his collection with a KISS towel at age eight got to watch his own son stand on a KISS stage with Paul Stanley in front of eighteen thousand people. If you have children and you have a passion that is truly yours, you understand what it means when that passion somehow finds its way into their story too. That night is in the collection now — not as a physical object but as something far more valuable. It is the moment the whole journey came full circle.

And then there is U2. I have seen U2 twenty-seven times. Twenty-seven. I have followed this band across multiple continents and multiple decades because their music has meant something profound to me at every stage of my adult life. But if I had to choose a highlight from twenty-seven extraordinary shows it would be seeing them in Ireland. On their home soil, in front of their own people, in the country that made them everything they are. There are concerts and then there are experiences that fundamentally change the way you understand a band and their relationship with the world. Seeing U2 in Ireland was the latter. It was one of the most moving nights of my life, full stop.

The other highlight — and this one is more recent and equally extraordinary — was seeing them at The Sphere in Las Vegas. If you have not experienced The Sphere then you simply cannot fully understand what I am about to say. It is not a concert venue. It is a total sensory environment unlike anything else that exists on earth. U2 inside The Sphere was not a show. It was an event that redefines what live music can be. I left that building genuinely shaken by what I had just witnessed — and I have been to over five hundred concerts. That is not something that happens easily.

But the concert list goes so far beyond KISS and U2 that I want to give you at least a sense of the full breadth of what these forty years have looked like. Michael Jackson in 1984 — the Victory Tour, one of the most spectacular live productions ever assembled, at a moment when Jackson was the biggest star on the planet and performing at a level that was simply otherworldly. I was there. The Who — the definitive rock and roll live band, a force of nature on any stage they have ever stood on. The Rolling Stones — because some things in life are mandatory and seeing the Stones live is one of them. Van Halen with David Lee Roth, which is as close to the definition of pure rock and roll joy as any live experience I have ever had. AC/DC — loud, relentless, perfect. Metallica — the greatest heavy metal live band in history, full stop, no argument entertained. Tool — a live experience so precise and so powerful that it borders on the spiritual. ZZ Top — Texas blues rock at its finest, delivered by three of the coolest human beings who have ever walked onto a stage. The Cult — criminally underrated as a live band, absolutely extraordinary every single time. And hundreds more — because when your passion is live music and you have been pursuing it for forty years from a base in Oklahoma City, you find a way to be at the shows that matter.

Every single one of those concerts left something behind. A ticket. A pass. A signed album obtained before or after the show. A setlist grabbed from the stage. A pick that landed at my feet. A photograph taken with someone I had admired for years. The collection grew with every show and every show became part of the collection's story.

Forty Years Later — The Collection

Let me share the full picture of what a lifetime of passionate collecting looks like when it is pursued with love, intention, and the kind of dedication that comes from genuinely caring about the subject matter.

Over 90 guitars with genuine stories, many connected directly to the artists who played them or the eras that defined them. Hundreds of autographed albums — vinyl records signed by the artists who made them, many with personal dedications that transform them from collectibles into conversations. Thousands of signed photographs covering every era of rock and roll. Vintage backstage passes from some of the most legendary tours in history — tiny laminated time capsules from specific nights that can never be recreated. Signed drum heads from some of the greatest drummers who ever lived. Signed setlists captured directly from the stage. Sports cards spanning decades of the hobby. Autographed sports memorabilia from some of the greatest athletes of any generation. And the vinyl — thousands of records representing not just a collection but a lifelong love affair with music in its most physical and intentional form.

I share all of this not to impress anyone but because I think it is important context for what Collector's Corner is going to be. This is a collection built over forty years by someone who started with nothing but an eight-year-old's passion and has never lost it. Every single piece has a story. And I am going to share those stories with you here every single week.

What's Coming in Collector's Corner

Every week I will be spotlighting a different piece from my personal collection — the full story behind how I got it, what makes it significant from both a personal and investment standpoint, and what it means to a lifelong collector who has spent four decades building something genuinely extraordinary one piece at a time.

Coming up in future editions — Bono's personal Emporio Armani sunglasses, signed on the case and authenticated by U2's own Principle Management and Beckett. The Van Halen 1978 Looney Tunes red vinyl promo — PRO 705 — one of the rarest pieces in all of Van Halen collecting. Deep dives into the investment case for rock memorabilia in 2026 and beyond. Stories from forty years of backstage passes, fanzines, and the extraordinary moments that only happen when you love something enough to show up for it over and over again across your entire life. Including the night my son Cameron stood on a KISS stage with Paul Stanley and waved to eighteen thousand people. That story deserves its own full edition. And it will get one.

This is Collector's Corner. Come back every week. The stories are just getting started.

Why I Collect — And Why It Matters

People sometimes ask me what drives a person to spend forty years building something like this. The honest answer is the same thing that drives everything I care about deeply — genuine passion. Real, lifelong, unfiltered love for something that moves you at the most fundamental level.

Rock and roll moved me at eight years old in a Tulsa arena when a roadie handed a wide-eyed kid a white towel. It has never stopped moving me. Not for a single day in over forty years. Every album I put on the turntable, every concert I attend, every signed piece I add to the collection — all of it connects back to that moment in 1979 and to the simple, profound truth that music is one of the most powerful forces in human experience.

Some people play golf. I go to concerts. And I have never once wished it were the other way around.

Wyatt Poindexter | Managing Partner — The Agency OKC & Tulsa 📱 405-417-5466 🌐 www.WyattPoindexter.com

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