Peter Tosh, No More Auction Block For Me

Peter Tosh, No More Auction Block For Me

I wonder how many readers picked up on the nuanced punch line that opened Tanya Batson-Savage’s recent article Icon for sale. Ms Batson-Savage wrote: “A piece of reggae history will step on the cyberspace ‘auction block’ when Peter Tosh’s Stratocaster M-16 guitar is auctioned by the Flashpoint Film Festival.”

There is keen insight and pathos in the writer’s use of the phrase ‘auction block’, for it not only riffs on the slave auction block, but also announces the fact that like blacks of a not-too-distant past, another piece of our material national culture will most likely be sold to the highest bidder. Not that the bid will or won’t be high. What is more important is that such an artifact is beyond monetary value. For more than reasons that can be argued here, the auctioning of Tosh’s M-16 guitar is disappointing news.

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