Freddie Mercury’s Collections Auctioned For $50 Million
Photos courtesy FreddieMercury.com
September 13, 2023
Sotheby’s online auction of Queen lead singer Freddy Mercury’s art, costumes, and other items – his “crazy little things” - ended today. The auction, and a live auction held last week by Sotheby’s, London, raised a total of $50 million, nearly five times higher than the original $11 million estimate.
“Excess is part of my nature. Dullness is a disease…I’m never scared of putting myself out on a limb,” Mercury, who passed away in 1991, once said.
Prior to the live auction, nearly 140,000 fans viewed the exhibit of items belonging to Mercury, “Britain’s greatest rock showman of the 20th century,” at the auction house’s New Bond Street location, Sothebys noted in a press release. “Some even came dressed in costume to the sale itself.”
At the live auction, all 59 lots, including one of Mercury’s piano and other musical instruments, lyrics, jewels, Japanese art, a red crown, costumes, and stage-wear, were sold.
Mercury’s handwritten draft of the lyrics for Bohemian Rhapsody fetched $1.7 million. It was written on sheets of British Midland Airways stationery. The silver snake bangle he wore in the song’s video sold for $882,000. This beat the $528,000 paid for a beaded and leather talisman, once owned by John Lennon of the Beatles, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The operatically styled single Bohemian Rhapsody was released by Queen in 1975. It was nearly dropped due to its six-minute length and unusual style but Mercury insisted on the release. It quickly became the best-selling single in the United Kingdom, staying on the top for nine weeks. By 2018, Rhapsody became the most streamed song, having been downloaded or streamed almost two billion times.
Mercury’s handwritten lyrics for We Are the Champions sold for nearly $400,000; that for Somebody To Love, for $300,000; and lyrics for Killer Queen for $346,000.
In 1979, Queen’s ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ topped the charts in the United States. Two years later, they performed before 231,000 fans in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a world record at the time.
In 1985, the band achieved wider global fame with their performance at Live Aid at Wembley Stadium, London. A YouTube video of the performance has been viewed more than seven million times; the performance of Bohemian Rhapsody at the event, more than 200 million times.
For many years, while pursuing his singing career in the United Kingdom, Mercury did not talk about his Indian connection or connect with his school friends in India. “As he became more famous, his Asian upbringing and heritage faded increasingly into the background…there were people who said he was burying his Asian roots,” according to The Telegraph.
Freddie Mercury with his mother Jer Bulsara
Freddie Mercury, Farrokh Bulsara, was born on the East African island of Zanzibar, then part of the British empire, on September 5, 1946. He was the son of Bomi, a cashier at the British Colonial Office, and Jer Bulsara, both immigrants from Mumbai.
From age 8, Mercury attended St. Peter’s, a boys’ boarding school, in Panchgani, a hill station about 150 miles southeast of Mumbai. His school mates called him Bucky, a nickname he wasn’t happy with given his self-consciousness about his protruding teeth.
He began taking piano lessons at the school and at age 12 was the lead singer of The Hectics. The five boys in the band, all from St. Peter’s, wore tight trousers, thin string ties, pointy shoes, and slicked their hair with big ‘puffs’, like their idols, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. They played songs by Presley and Richard like Girl of My Best Friend and Rock Around the Clock. “Yes, Freddie was a great musician, but the rest of us just made a lot of noise,” Bruce Murray, founder of The Hectics told Scroll.in.
Freddie Mercury at St.Peter’s School, India
Mercury’s 1973 Yamaha Grand piano, on which he composed “Bohemian Rhapsody,” sold for $2.2 million to an anonymous bidder. This established an auction record for a composer’s piano, surpassing $2.1 million paid for the Steinway used by John Lennon to write “Imagine,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
In 1964, at age 18, Mercury moved with his family to Middlesex, England, following a revolution in Zanzibar, now part of Tanzania. He studied art at the Isleworth Polytechnic, now West Thames College, in West London. He earned a diploma in Art and Graphic Design at the Ealing Art College, now the Ealing Campus of the University of West London. His initial jobs included selling used clothing and working at Heathrow airport.
While at Ealing, Mercury sang for a blues band called Wreckage. A fellow student introduced him to Roger Taylor and Brian May, founder members of a band called Smile. Mercury joined Smile, which later became Queen, as the lead singer; the band added John Deacon as the bassist. Mercury had a voice with a remarkable range and a stage presence, including theatrical and balletic movements, that gave Queen its colorful, unpredictable, and flamboyant personality.
EMI Records and Elektra Records signed the band and in 1973 their debut album Queen was released. In the mid 80’s, Mercury launched a solo career, along with being part of Queen.
In 1986, Mercury’s first major collaboration outside Queen was with Dave Clark for the recording of London’s West End musical Time. The next year he realized one of his long-term dreams - to record with the world revered opera diva Montserrat Caballé. The LP’s title song, ‘Barcelona’ went on to become an anthem for Señora Caballé’s home city and the theme for the Olympics in the city in 1992.
Queen stayed together from 1971 till Mercury passed away on November 24, 1991, at age 46. His struggle against AIDS ended just over 24 hours after he had publicly announced he had the disease.
The next year Elton John, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and other renowned musicians took part in the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium. This led to the setting up of the Mercury Phoenix Trust, the AIDS charity set up in his memory by the remaining members of Queen.
“Freddie was an incredible and intelligent collector who showed us that there is beauty and fun and conversation to be found in everything,” Mary Austin, a friend to whom Mercury gave the items which were auctioned, said in a statement.
Part of the proceeds from the auction will go to the Mercury Phoenix Trust and to the foundation of one of his friends, the Elton John AIDS Foundation. An Onyx and diamond ring, which Elton John gifted to Mercury, sold for $340,000, which will be donated to the Elton John Aids Foundation.
Mercury once said, “I don’t want to change the world with our music. There are no hidden messages in our songs.”
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