Untouched For Decades, Freddie Mercury’s Heiress Is Auctioning Off Priceless Items From His Personal Estate
ByJoseph Gibsonon May 2, 2023inArticles›Celebrity News
Late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury accumulated a variety of collectibles during his time as one of the greatest rock stars on Earth. Some of the items are quite valuable. Some just your average everyday trinkets. There’s Queen memorabilia, costumes, art and original lyrics notes. None of those items have been seen or touched in the three decades since Freddie’s death in 1991. They’ve remained in his former London mansion, under the watchful eye of Freddie’s one-time girlfriend and primary heiress, Mary Austin . Preliminary estimates of the total potential value of the auction is in the $7-10 million range. But that’s likely to end up being a very conservative estimate based on some similar sales of the last few years.
The collection includes everything from Fabergé clocks to Victorian-era paintings, plus valuable Queen memorabilia like Mercury’s original handwritten lyrics to several Queen classics, including “Killer Queen” and “We Are the Champions.”
Sotheby’s, which is handling the auction, is setting the initial bid for his “We Are the Champions” lyrics note at $250,000. The bidding will have to go quite a bit higher than that if the sale is going to break a price record in the field of original music manuscripts. Right now, that record belongs to Bob Dylan’s original lyrics for “Like a Rolling Stone,” which were sold to a collector for $2 million.
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Whether the Mercury collection will outshine its presale estimates or not remains to be seen, with the bidding set to begin on September 6. But one positive indicator was seen last year, when a 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow that once belonged to Mercury hit the auction block. That car ended up selling for almost ten times its initial estimate at $355,000.
The auction will include about 1,500 pieces that belonged to habitual art collector Mercury and have been kept by his one-time fiancé and longtime friend Mary Austin at his home in London since his death in 1991. Most of the pieces have never been seen by the public, and in what is good news for fans of Mercury’s who might not have the funds to make a bid of their own, Sotheby’s has announced that the auction will coincide with an “immersive exhibit” recreating Mercury’s home and displaying his collection and other artifacts from his career.
At the time of his death in November 1991, Freddie Mercury’s net worth was worth was around $20 million. After adjusting for inflation, that’s the same as around $50 million today. He left the majority of his estate to Mary Austin, his one-time fiance. He left smaller amounts and shares to his parents, sister and even his personal chef and driver.
His 1991 net worth does not NOT include the value of his publishing and catalog rights which would presumably be worth hundreds of millions of dollars today. Those rights are currently owned in equal shares by Mary Austin and his three Queen bandmates Brian May , John Deacon and Roger Taylor .
The auction will take place on September 6.
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Sylvester Stallone Is Putting His $6 Million Watch Collection Up For Auction Next Month
ByJoseph Gibsonon May 20, 2024inArticles›Celebrity News
One of the most notable watch collectors in the world is film star Sylvester Stallone , who has been a star in the watch world as well for much of his career. Now, Stallone and the Sotheby’s auction house are bringing his one-of-a-kind collection of timepieces to the auction block next month, and together, they’re estimated to be worth some $6 million.
That’s an especially high sum when you realize that the part of his collection that Stallone is parting with is only made up of 11 watches all in all. The crown jewel of the collection is undoubtedly Stallone’s Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime, one of the rarest and most expensive watches ever made. Another Grandmaster Chime set the record for the most expensive watch of all time when it sold for $31 million, and Stallone’s own Chime cost $2.5 million. Analysts reportedly expect the watch to sell for somewhere between that sum and $5 million at the auction, but Stallone’s celebrity, as well as the rarity of a Grandmaster Chime being on the auction block in the first place (this will be the first time such a piece has been up for commercial, non-charitable bidding), could push the price significantly higher.
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This is a watch so rare and so valuable that Stallone has never even taken it out of its box, let alone put it on. He speaks extensively on the Grandmaster Chime as well as the other watches in his collection in a video on the Sotheby’s YouTube channel:
“The one thing that is pervasive throughout all these watches is that they attract me emotionally. It’s not about keeping time, it’s about keeping in step with where you are in life,” Stallone told Sotheby’s. In addition to the Grandmaster Chime, Stallone is also selling two other Patek Philippe pieces: a Nautilus reference 5711/1300A-001 from 2021 said to be worth anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000, and another Nautilus worth a mere $50,000-$100,000.
Stallone is also letting go of four watches from Panerai, a brand he has been enthusiastic about not just collecting but promoting in public and even in his movies. The Panerai Reference PAM00382 Luminor Submersible 1950 going up for auction was featured in “The Expendables 2,” and the winning bidder will also receive a signed poster for the movie. Budget-conscious watch collectors may be interested in Stallone’s gold Piaget Polo Grande, the cheapest watch in the collection, with an estimated value range between $6,000 and $12,000.
The auction is set to commence on June 5th, 2024.
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