The hat with which Michael Jackson appeared on stage 40 years ago to dance his famous "moonwalk" will be auctioned on September 26 in Paris.
It was in the first bars of "Billie Jean", and the choreography was recorded on March 25, 1983. The video was broadcast on May 16, 1983 by the American network NBC, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the famous Motown record label.
Jackson threw the hat off the stage, just as he began to dance. He is a Fedora, and has a starting estimate of between 60,000 and 100,000 euros (between $66,000 and $110,000).
It is part of a lot of 200 objects from the world of rock and pop that will be put up for sale at the Parisian auction house Hôtel Drouot.
It was in this room where a Noel Gallagher guitar, which the musician broke backstage before a concert by his band Oasis, was auctioned last year. That broken guitar announced the end of the group, and it was sold for 385,500 euros in total (about $411,000 at the current exchange rate).
"A certain Adam Kelly - accredited for the show on March 25, 1983 - picked up the hat, thinking that the singer's staff was going to recover it, but no one did," Arthur Perault, general director of the Artpèges gallery, explained to AFP. , which is organizing the sale with Lemon Auction.
The hat changed hands and appeared in a European collection, he explained.
The sale of objects related to the world of popular music has established itself as one of the main vectors in the world of auctions.
Recently, a thousand objects belonging to the British singer Freddie Mercury reached 46.5 million euros (almost 50 million dollars), a record for this type of collection, explained the Sotheby's auction house.
