A poster for a 1959 concert featuring Buddy Holly fetched $447,000 at auction in the United States. That was a world record for a concert poster, said the auction house Heritage Auctions on Friday (local time).

A poster for a Beatles concert in New York's Shea Stadium in 1966 achieved the previous highest price at an auction. It brought in $275,000 last April.

The now auctioned concert poster has a tragic background. The black and yellow poster advertised a February 3, 1959 concert as part of the "Winter Dance Party" tour of the Midwest, which featured rock pioneers such as then-22-year-old Buddy Holly ("Peggy Sue") and 17-year-old Ritchie Valens ("La Bamba").

Holly, Valens and their colleague Big Bopper had chartered a light plane after a performance in Clear Lake (Iowa) to avoid the long bus ride to Moorhead (Minnesota). On February 3, shortly after midnight, the machine crashed in a field. No one on board survived.

According to the auction house, the poster was initially attached to a telephone pole as advertising. A worker later found it on the floor and kept it in a cupboard at home for 50 years.