LONDON (Reuters) -From John Lennon’s round-framed glasses to Noel Gallagher’s guitars, music history goes under the hammer this week in London.
Propstore, an auction house specialising in entertainment memorabilia, is offering more than 550 lots in a two-day music auction taking place in London on Thursday and Friday.
The sale is expected to raise more than 3 million pounds ($4.03 million).
Among those are more than 150 Oasis items, led by Noel Gallagher’s 1960 red Gibson ES-355 guitar, which he said his brother Liam smashed during an argument on the night the band broke up in 2009.
The instrument, which has since been repaired and has an estimate of 250,000 – 500,000 pounds, was damaged at a Paris festival just before Oasis were due to perform in one of the brothers’ well-publicised feuds.
Hours later Noel quit the band. More than 16 years on, the brothers put the acrimony behind them in July when they kicked off a reunion tour.
Other memorabilia includes Noel Gallagher’s Takamine FP460SC acoustic guitar used to record “Wonderwall” and his handwritten lyrics for every song on Oasis’ seven studio albums.
“It’s the biggest Oasis collection of music memorabilia to ever come to market anywhere in the world. And that’s over 1 million pounds,” Propstore’s music specialist Mark Hochman told Reuters, adding he expected “huge” demand for Oasis items at the sale.
“Oasis has literally taken over; the fan base is huge…I think Oasis (memorabilia) is going to do very well.”Other sale highlights include Lennon’s tinted prescription glasses, worn in 1973-74 during his 18-month “lost weekend” period when he had a relationship with employee May Pang. The glasses have an estimate of 150,000 – 300,000 pounds.
Also on offer are a white fedora Michael Jackson wore for his “Smooth Criminal” music video and Jimi Hendrix’s handwritten lyrics for “Straight Ahead” among other memorabilia.
“There’s Oasis items which start at 200 pounds…we’ve got photographs from some of the leading rock photographers starting at 300 pounds,” Hochman said. “I like to think there is something for everyone.”
($1 = 0.7451 pounds)
(Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Editing by William Maclean)
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