(Paris) The hat that Michael Jackson wore just before performing his first moonwalk – his signature dance step – was sold on Tuesday for 77,640 euros (with fees) ($110,900), during an auction in Paris in the presence of many fans and curious onlookers, announced the Drouot hotel.
This wool hat lined with silk, a Fedora model, estimated between 60,000 and 100,000 euros ($85,000 and $143,000), was the highlight of this sale bringing together 200 rock objects, under the hammer of the Lemon auction house Auction.
“It was a certain Adam Kelly – whose badge we have for the show on March 25, 1983 – who collected this hat that day, thinking that the singer’s staff would come and collect it, but no,” he told AFP Arthur Perault, general director of the Artpèges gallery who put it up for sale.
Adam Kelly kept it for several years before selling it to an American collector. This hat later reappeared in a European collection.
Bidders also competed for the guitar of bluesman T-Bone Walker (1910-1975), a major influence on BB King, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. The instrument was sold for 129,400 euros (with fees) ($185,00). This “six-string”, produced in only 22 examples in 1949, was valued at 150,000 euros ($215,000), at a high estimate.
Recently, in London, a series of auctions of thousands of items that belonged to Freddie Mercury reached 46.5 million euros ($66.4 million), a record for a collection of this kind, according to the house of Sotheby’s sale. Including the piano on which the artist composed almost everything from Bohemian Rhapsodygone for 2 million euros ($2.8 million).