Treasures collected over his lifetime by Legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury will be up for auction. This is after locking the collections away in his west London home for 30 years.
Sotheby’s will host six separate sales of these items, including a crown he wore on Queen’s final tour, valued at £80,000, and his handwritten lyrics for “We are The Champions,” expected to fetch £300,000.
The quirky, deeply personal objects include a small Tiffany & Co. silver moustache comb, valued at £600, sketchbooks filled with drawings of his home, valued at £3,000, and his bedside Bakelite phone expected to sell for a similar amount.
His favourite waistcoat, worn in the video for “These Are The Days Of Our Lives,” which features silk panels hand-painted with portraits of his six cats, could sell for £7,000.
Mary Austin
Mary Austin, one of his oldest friends, inherited Mercury’s Kensington home Garden Lodge and its contents, but has decided to sell.
Freddie Mercury met her before Queen was formed. She assisted in nursing him through his final illness.
Austin said, “For many years now, I have had the joy and privilege of living surrounded by all the wonderful things that Freddie sought out and so loved.
But the years have passed, and the time has come for me to take the difficult decision to close this very special chapter in my life.
It was important to me to do this in a way that I felt Freddie would have loved, and there was nothing he loved more than an auction.”
More than 1,500 objects from the house, including artworks from Mercury’s private collection, such as a watercolor given to him by fellow star Sir Elton John, will go on show at Sotheby’s in London . This is before the sale opens on September 6.
We anticipate that the sale will generate approximately £6 million, and that we will divide the proceeds between the Mercury Phoenix Trust and the Elton John Aids Foundation.
Mercury died of complications from AIDS in 1991.
