It is hard to know which item will garner most interest over the coming weeks – the tiny silver Tiffany & Co moustache comb, perhaps, or possibly the handwritten lyrics to “We Are the Champions”. There is, after all, much to choose from among the 1,400 lots from the personal collection of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, now open to the public ahead of a sale at London auction house Sotheby’s next month.
A black lacquered piano, once stationed in the singer’s drawing room, and upon which he wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody”, is expected to fetch somewhere between £2m and £3m. A selection of extravagant stagewear, from sequinned catsuits to red vinyl trousers, and of course the famous crown and robe worn for Queen’s final tour in 1986, which will likely draw vertiginous bids. But there are more affordable lots, too: 29 items of cat-themed paraphernalia. Polaroids. Vases. A travel Scrabble set.
