How much history a piano can hold depends on who sat in front of it. For this Yamaha C3 grand piano, the answer is Freddie Mercury—he used it to write and record Queen's "The Game," "Hot Space," and "The Works," including "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," at Munich's Musicland Studios. Auction house Propstore has named the piano the centerpiece of its upcoming entertainment memorabilia sale, with an estimate reaching up to $528,000.
Musicland Studios was a major hub for rock recording in its day, hosting landmark sessions by the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. This makes the piano not just a personal tool of Mercury's, but a tangible relic of that studio's golden era.
The piano is the centerpiece of the Reinhold Mack Collection, an 81-piece collection preserved for years by longtime Queen producer Reinhold Mack and his son Freddie Jr. Mack has described Mercury as being like family, someone who often escaped the pressures of superstardom at their Munich home. He noted that the collection was kept for decades purely out of sentiment, not with any intention of cashing in.
Other lots in the sale include an AKG C414 EB microphone used specifically to record Mercury's lead and backing vocals, estimated at $105,600, as well as handwritten lyric manuscripts for early solo singles like "My Love Is Dangerous" and "Let's Turn It On." The entertainment memorabilia auction overall is expected to bring in around $4 million total.
Public viewing will take place starting September 23 at London's Cumberland Hotel, with live bidding scheduled to run from October 1 through October 2.
