Freddie Auction and Sotheby's book discussion

Thanks for clarifying. Can you post a link to this one ?

My god, you can be such an insufferable twat.

Were you in the band ? Nobody was even remotely thinking you should be entitled to any of this - that connection was made only in your own head.

It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the band members could and should have gotten first dibs on pieces of their own history, not a borderline internet troll.

The length of time one has known about a specific item is irrelevant to the feeling of loss. I'd venture to say you aren't a historian by any stretch if the irreversible loss of artifacts (especially on a subject that interests you as much as this) doesn't pain you in some way.

They did a News of the World box set, and none of these handwritten lyrics were included. This is literally why box sets exist - to provide a much fuller look at the period in question. And unless someone got their hands on a scan of those lyrics, they're gone forever.

But it remains to be seen if QPL will end up in possession of any of the items.

An auction of late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury's personal possessions is currently underway in London, and his former bandmate Brian May admits that he is finding the sale "too sad" to watch.

More than 140,000 members of the public visited Sotheby's auction house to view the Freddie Mercury, A World of His Own exhibition in the run up to the week-long auction, which began yesterday, September 5, and more than 6,000 people have watched the opening days of bidding online. For the most part, Mercury's personal effects are being sold for prices far in excess of what they were expected to fetch.

Almost 30,000 items once owned by the singer - ranging from the Yamaha baby grand piano on which he composed some of Queen's best-loved songs through to personal Polaroid photos, gold and platinum discs, handwritten lyrics, a 'Dragon Throne' and around 50 Japanese silk kimonos - are going under the hammer. The items were once housed in Mercury's Kensington home, Garden Lodge, and were bequeathed to Mary Austin, one of the singer's closest friends, who has now decided to put everything up for sale.

A statement from Sotheby's described the exhibition as "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the public and private realm of a global icon."

Read more...

www.loudersound.com/news/brian-may-dismay-freddie-mercury-auction

Sounds like you're pretty butthurt over this issue yourself.  Either way, you weren't in the band.  

Here is the link: www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/freddie-mercury-a-world-of-his-own-the-evening-sale/freddie-mercury-notebook-with-autograph-manuscript?locale=en

Gosh, folks! Are we going for who can win a pedantry battle in here!!!?! 😂😋

Ultimately, Mary can do what she likes with what have now been HER things in many cases longer than they were ever Freddie’s!

But it can be simultaneously true that Mary can do as she pleases and there can be sadness in it. For me, the main sadness stems from the very fact that these things were kept together like some vestige of Freddie himself by Mary for over 30 years, and now they will never be together or all findable again. Maybe that’s part of what Mary is doing though & why she is getting rid of even some pretty personal items… it’s her way of scattering the last of Freddie she’s kept all this time & letting him go fully at last? After being given his legacy to protect & she’s kept it together & private so long, surely she should be able to let him go now & surely better for her to decide how to go about that as opposed to someone random after she herself can no longer manage it or isn’t around?

For me, I think it’s a bit sad that costumes & lyrics won’t be somewhere together as a record of Freddie. Collectibles - sell them for others to enjoy! And I believe Freddie’s instruments should be PLAYED, not just in a museum or such! (In my dream, Freddie’s pianos would go to meaningful venues to him & would then be used there for future joy by amazing musicians!!! But I’m just a dreamer, sooooo….) But y’know, in the end we have the music. Everything else is just stuff & it is interesting of course (both for its own beauty and because Freddie loved it) but it doesn’t much matter what happens to it. And as a private person, for folk to gawp at it for all eternity wouldn’t be Freddie’s dream! For what it’s worth I’m sure he couldn’t give a stuff what happened to anything now, after so long. But if anything I imagine him finding last night fun, and some of the prices - funny!

Interesting to watch the auction last night anyway! I clearly watched too long as Freddie then entered my dreams as I slept 😂😂😂. I thought I’d feel sadder watching it, but actually the idea of it was sadder than the actual event which was pretty fun really and interesting.

Curious what went for big prices & what not. A great evening for art collectors to have nabbed a few things. I was sad about those ‘70’s stage worn costumes not going for nearly as much as some other stuff. Surely they mean almost the most? To me, those costumes mean a lot, so I guess I just felt they weren’t loved commensurate to what they MEAN & that’s what made me a bit sad. Especially when you compare incredible stage-worn costumes to…. Just a pair of trainers… 😭 But oh well. ☹️

And that the piano was under estimate. But in the end I just hope the piano is played.

And I also amused myself because the Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics are written in pencil so as they were bid on, higher & higher I imagined a burglar breaking into whoever buys them’s home, finding them… just rubbing them out… and leaving! 😂🤣😂🤣😅 Maybe my mind works in weird ways.

Anyway, multiple things can be true at once, but all in all what an interesting evening to view!

My book arrived by the way & is excellent quality so I hugely recommend if anyone didn’t get it yet!!

Yes I'm a twat.

But I clearly do not have a monopoly on ridiculous views.

Peace.

330,200 GBP premium included

Just ridiculous views then…😉

Day 2 is currently live, and while the amounts aren't as mind-blowing as last night, there's still serious bidding going on....at this rate the whole auction might hit £30m

Some of his suits were sold at a relatively low price.

The vagaries of auctions, I'm learning

is there a link for day 2?

The auction just closed out, another "white glove" day.  There is one more online auction tomorrow and it's the items from Freddie's home.  It starts at 10:00 your time which means I have to get up before the sun to see the first few hours.  I think you can get the link at Sotheby's official site.