Michael Zagaris shot the 49ers dynasty, the A's and half of '70s rock. Twenty-seven lots from his personal archive are up at Heritage Auctions through Sunday — but the sale is online, run out of Dallas, with no local viewing.

Start with the catch, because it reshapes the whole "thing to do": the Michael Zagaris Collection is billed as a Bay Area story, but there is nowhere in the Bay to go see it. Twenty-seven lots from the personal archive of the 49ers' and A's longtime team photographer are up for bid through Sunday, Aug. 23 — online only, handled out of Heritage Auctions' Dallas headquarters. No preview room, no local hang, no last look before these prints scatter to whoever clicks "bid." The event, such as it is, happens on your screen.

Here are the logistics that matter. The Zagaris lots sit inside Heritage's Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, running Aug. 21–23. The headline live session opened at 10 p.m. on the 21st — Central time, so 8 p.m. for us — and web bidding stays live across the weekend. To look or bid, go to Heritage's site (external source, opens in a new tab), search the sale by name, and set up a free account before you can place anything. NBC Bay Area put the sale on local radar this week, with anchor Raj Mathai sitting the 81-year-old photographer down for an on-camera interview.

Why bother if you're not buying? Because the archive is a straight shot through Bay Area history. Zagaris took the 49ers job in 1973 and the A's job two years earlier, and by his own account he has worked past 40 Super Bowls and a dozen World Series with the kind of clubhouse-and-sideline access most shooters never get. Much of what's for sale is labeled Type 1 — the trade's term for an early print struck straight off the original negative, close to when the frame was shot, and prized because there's no generational copy in between. The names on the wall text run from Joe Montana's rookie year and coach Bill Walsh to Raiders-era John Madden, plus rock frames of Mick Jagger and The Who. A few game-worn 49ers jerseys round it out — Dwight Clark's and Ronnie Lott's among them, plus one from receiver John Taylor and Montana himself.

A money caveat, so nobody gets the wrong idea: the eye-popping $10 million estimate attached to this auction is for Diego Maradona's 1986 "Hand of God" soccer ball, an entirely separate lot in the broader sale — not one of Zagaris' pictures. Heritage hasn't posted per-lot estimates on his photographs, so unless you're a real bidder, this is window-shopping.

The insider tip: the football material will draw the deep-pocket money, but keep an eye on the music side. One frame catches Pete Townshend's guitar mid-flight over the stage at San Francisco's Winterland in 1976 — the sort of hometown artifact you'd rather see stay on a wall here than ship to Texas.

If you've only got two hours: make the free account, filter down to the Zagaris lots, and just scroll. It's a no-cost tour through half a century of the Bay Area sitting dead center in American sports and music — and then, if something grabs you, you've got until Sunday night to decide whether it's worth a bid.