(Paris) The hat worn by Michael Jackson when he first performed his famous “moonwalk” dance move will be auctioned on September 26 in Paris, auction organizers announced on Wednesday.
The “King” of pop threw this headgear off the stage on March 25, 1983, during the 25th anniversary of the Motown label, just before performing on Billie Jean, in front of the cameras of the American network NBC , that backward slippage that would go down in history.
This piece, estimated between 60,000 and 100,000 euros ($87,000 and $145,000), will be the attraction of a sale of rock objects at the Hôtel Drouot, the main auction place in Paris. This sale is organized by the companies Artpèges and Lemon Auction which, last year, had caused a sensation with the guitar of Noel Gallagher, smashed the evening of the separation of Oasis, awarded 385,500 euros ($ 556,000) with costs.
The sale will feature approximately 200 lots (photos, posters and concert tickets, Madonna’s gold record, vintage guitars, costumes by Martin Gore from Depeche Mode, Rolling Stones vinyl, etc.). The catalog of the sale will be online on July 4 (lemonauction.fr).
Among the other pieces, there will be a guitar by bluesman T-Bone Walker (major influence of B. B. King, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton) produced in only 22 copies in 1949. The instrument is estimated between 100,000 and 150,000 euros ($145,000 and $217,000).
More unusual, there will also be a section of the wall of the Bus Palladium, a Parisian club (opened in 1965, closed in 2022), signed among others by Carl Barât, Pete Doherty (The Libertines), Jean-Benoît Dunckel (Air), The Dandy Warhols, Beth Ditto (Gossip), estimated between 5,000 and 8,000 euros ($7,200 and $11,500).
