Archives do not fund themselves. The Bob Moog Foundation maintains a physical archive of Bob Moog’s papers and prototypes, runs Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool in classrooms, and operates the Moogseum in Asheville, North Carolina — three things that cost money continuously and generate very little.
So: an auction, and a short one. Bidding opened 19 October 2026 and closes Monday 26 October at 12 p.m. ET. If you are reading this later than that, you have missed it.
What is in it
The lots are original artwork, professionally framed prints, autographed collectibles and memorabilia. Named highlights:
- An original caricature signed by Keith Emerson
- Synth-inspired artwork by the illustrator Kyle Platts
- Prints by the UK design studio Dorothy, on the Minimoog and on electronic music history
- Photographs signed by Roger Powell (Todd Rundgren’s Utopia) and Larry Fast (Synergy, and work with Peter Gabriel)
- An original acrylic by Dave C. Lovelace of Bob Moog beside a modular synth, with Lovelace’s character The Packrat — painted live at the Moogseum during Moog’s 92nd birthday celebration
- Framed tributes to Keith Emerson and Bernie Worrell
- A poster for Moog’s 2013 National Inventors Hall of Fame induction
- A Moogfest 2014 poster
Several pieces were framed by two Asheville businesses, BlackBird Frame & Art and Frugal Framer — a small detail that tells you what kind of organisation is running this. The Foundation is a local institution before it is a global brand, and the framing bill went to two shops down the road.
The Lovelace painting is the one with the best provenance story, because it was made at the thing it depicts: an artist painting Bob Moog beside a modular, in the museum about Bob Moog, on Bob Moog’s birthday.
How to bid
The auction runs on the Foundation’s own Shopify store, in the auction-today collection. You create a Shopify account or log into an existing one, then review each listing — which carries photos, dimensions, condition, an estimated value and fulfilment details — before bidding.
Local pickup in Asheville is available, and some oversized pieces are pickup-only. That is the practical constraint to check before you fall in love with a framed print: the Foundation’s announcement does not describe shipping options or costs for the items that can ship, and does not state the total number of lots.
Every winning bid goes to Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool, the Bob Moog Foundation Archives, and the Moogseum.
Why bother mentioning a charity auction
Because the thing being funded is unusual and nobody else is doing it.
Electronic music’s material history is in a bad way. Prototypes get scrapped, schematics live in one person’s garage, and the engineers who remember why a circuit was designed that way are in their seventies and eighties. Commercial synth companies have a business reason to maintain a brand narrative and almost none to maintain an archive — and when they do donate material, as inMusic did to this Foundation earlier in 2026, it is the Foundation that has to catalogue, store and make it usable.
Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool is the other half, and the less glamorous one: a curriculum that teaches primary-school children the physics of sound through synthesis. That is a better argument for the Foundation’s existence than any amount of memorabilia, and it is what a bid on a signed photograph is actually paying for.
A reminder, too, that this is a 20th anniversary year for the Foundation.
One note on the sourcing
Neither the Foundation’s announcement nor the trade coverage of it carries a single attributed quote from anyone at the organisation, and no lot count is published anywhere we could find. The dates and the mechanics below are from the Foundation’s own page; the item descriptions are from both it and Synth and Software’s write-up of 20 October.
Sources
- Bob Moog Foundation Announces Online Auction of Synthesizer Art and Memorabilia — Bob Moog Foundation
- Bob Moog Foundation Announces Online Fundraising Auction — Synth and Software
- Celebrating 20 Years of The Bob Moog Foundation — Synth and Software
- The Moogseum
- Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool — Bob Moog Foundation