Surprising music memorabilia that went to auction

Microphone on stage

As an online auction specialist, Capital Asset Remarketing regularly sell a wide selection of items. It is mainly vehicles – such as cars, motorbikes and vans that we are approached to sell online.

However, there are plenty of other less common items that have made it to the auction room – either online or in a more traditional auction room.

Take the music business. Plenty of fans will do whatever it takes to own a piece of their hero. Here are few examples of less orthodox music industry related items that have made it under the hammer – and made a lot of money for their owners.

Love me do

Fan of the Beatles? Perhaps you’d like a memento from John Lennon’s childhood.  A lot of mementos from Lennon’s life have come to auction over the years, including a school detention sheet and one of his missing teeth!

The pre-Fab 4’s detention sheet showed no less than 29 detentions in a 10 month period between 1955 and 1956. John may not have been too popular with his teachers, but he certainly proved popular with music lovers the world over. For one fan the sheet became a must-have item and fetched £2,500 when it went to auction in 2015. A few years before in 2011 one of his teeth fetched an impressive £19,000. Perhaps the successful bidder was hoping to clone the former Beatle from his DNA?

What a hero   

It’s almost a year since David Bowie died and fans are still mourning his loss. But around the time of his passing you would have been able to bid for a plaster mask of the Thin White Duke’s face. It was made for the Tony Scott film ‘The Hunger’ in which Bowie co-starred with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. Bowie played an undead cello player and needed the mask for the heavy ageing make up he wore for sections of the film. The mask sold at auction for a bargain £1,800 – if you like that sort of thing.

Piece of me

Cast your mind back to Britney mania in the early 2000s. Everybody loved the former Mickey Mouseketteer turned singer. She was riding high in the charts as the world’s biggest pop star and everybody wanted to cash in on her fame.

So, in 2004 is it any surprise that an item discarded by Spears went to auction? Not really, but you might be surprised at exactly what went to the auction floor. A piece of chewing gum thrown away by Spears was collected from the pavement, bagged up and taken to auction. It sold for a mere $14,000 and when the gavel came down the new owner must have been thrilled at what they had acquired. A piece of pop history – or just something that you’d be annoyed by if you found it under your shoe?

Material girl

Before Britney there was Madonna, who for a while in the 1980s was as big a star as any in the music industry. Over the years Madonna’s costumes were famous and notorious in equal measure. She certainly made a lot of money and spent a lot of money. So what better way to commemorate the cash cow of the music industry than to own one of her (expired) credit cards? The card comes from one of her most creative periods and expired in August 1990.

When the card went to auction in 2016 it was expected to fetch between $400 – $600. In fact, it went under the hammer for $2,560. A lot of money for a little piece of plastic.  And being a credit card, is comes complete with a built-in autograph.

The main thing that all of these music industry related item have in common is that without going to auction, they would never have achieved these sorts of prices.  By putting a highly desirable item to auction in front of the right audience, you never know how much it will raise.

Capital Asset Remarketing are online auction specialists. If you have an item that you’d like to sell, get in touch.

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