The hat worn by Michael Jackson when he first performed his famous ‘Moonwalk’ dance step will be auctioned on 26 September in Paris, the organisers of the sale announced on Wednesday.
The ‘King’ of pop threw the hat to the side of the stage on 25 March 1983, during the 25th anniversary of the Motown label, just before performing the backward slide step that was to go down in history in front of the cameras of US channel NBC while singing ‘Billie Jean.’
The headpiece, estimated at between €60,000 and €100,000, will be the main attraction of a sale of rock objects at Hôtel Drouot, the main Parisian auction house.
The sale is being organised by Artpèges and Lemon Auction, who caused a sensation last year with Noel Gallagher’s guitar - smashed on the night of Oasis’ split-up - selling for €385,500 with fees.
The sale will feature around 200 lots (photos, concert posters and tickets, Madonna’s gold disc, vintage guitars, Martin Gore’s Depeche Mode costume, Rolling Stones vinyl, etc.). The auction catalogue will be online on 4 July (lemonauction.fr).
The other items will include a guitar by bluesman T-Bone Walker (a major influence on B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton) only 22 of which were produced in 1949. The instrument is estimated at between €100,000 and €150,000.
There will also be a section of the wall from the Bus Palladium, a Paris club (opened in 1965, closed in 2022), signed by Carl Barât, Pete Doherty (The Libertines), Jean-Benoît Dunckel (Air), The Dandy Warhols, Beth Ditto (Gossip) and others. It is estimated at between €5,000 and €8,000.
