Jimi Hendrix’s ‘arrest card’ up for auction

How much would you spend for a piece of Hendrix history?

An arrest card filled out by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jimi Hendrix in 1969 is expected to sell for thousands of dollars at an upcoming auction.

TheGrio Staff

Mar 2, 2018

An arrest card filled out by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jimi Hendrix in 1969 is expected to sell for thousands of dollars at an upcoming auction.

On May 3, 1969, Hendrix was charged with drugs possession in Canada and detained at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport over after it was discovered that he had heroin and hash in his luggage. Ultimately, Hendrix was able to successfully argue his way out of a possible 20 year prison term for each drugs charge by claiming to have had no knowledge of the drugs. He allegedly said that he didn’t even know they had been put in his luggage.

Hendrix claimed that he had “outgrown” drugs, and his manager, Chas Chandler, argued that Hendrix often received gifts from fans. Therefore, he couldn’t always know what fans had given him.

Canadian law requires that, at a trial, the accused has to be proven to have known about the drugs. Therefore, Hendrix walked away without jail time and later declared, “Canada has given me the best Christmas present I ever had.”

The arrest card

At his arrest, Hendrix filled out a card that included his full name, address, and all ten fingerprints. The card also notes a “scar on right eye.”

Now, 49 years later, that card is up for auction, and the sellers expect to see thousands of dollars offered up for the piece of Hendrix history, according to USA Today.

Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR Auction, noted that the mug shot of Hendrix that accompanied this arrest sold for $14,000. The arrest card is expected to draw in at least that amount.

“It’s one of those things I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up in a museum,” he told the Vancouver Sun.

The RR Auction event goes live on March 8, the day before an anthology of largely unheard Hendrix songs will be released. The album, Both Sides of the Sky, is the third in a trilogy of similiar compilations.