LONDON (AP) -- An auction of John Lennon memorabilia raised far less money than expected, with high-priced items such as his Phantom Vox organ guitar failing to sell.
Although 70 percent of the items were sold, Monday night's auction raised a total of $111,000 -- much lower than the estimated $1.1 million -- because the most expensive items didn't sell, Cooper Owen auctioneers said.
The prototype organ guitar, given to Lennon at a 1964 Beatles show, had been expected to fetch up to $222,000. The top bid of $143,000 failed to reach the reserve price.
Another no-go was Lennon's largest known visual arts creation, a mosaic called "All Seeing Eye" that had been installed in a swimming pool at a mansion he shared with his first wife, Cynthia. Bids didn't even reach half the pre-auction estimate of $318,000.
Two tapes that Lennon recorded with his second wife, Yoko Ono, at the home of Ono's ex-husband, Tony Cox, in Denmark in 1970 also failed to sell. The tapes featured Lennon playing impromptu songs to and with Ono's daughter, Kyoko.
Three items purchased by an unidentified buyer raised questions about his or her identity -- a doodle ($11,000), a page from one of his notebooks with handwritten lyrics to "Steel & Glass" ($24,000) and an identity card he signed while working at a Liverpool waterworks facility in 1959 ($10,300). The day after he left that job, Lennon played his first gig with the band that became The Beatles.
A spokesman for Cooper Owen said the items had been bought by an agent for a Japanese investor, but refused to say whether it was Ono.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusic/nov20_lennon-ap.html
