Bowie’s handwritten Starman lyrics sell for stellar £200,000

From - The Guardian magazine,

Edited by Vinuri Randhula Silva,

David Bowie on his Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane tour in London in 1973. Photograph: Michael Putland/Getty Images

Price five times more than estimate as A4 sheet bought by Tasmanian museum

David Bowie’s handwritten lyrics to his 1972 song Starman have sold for more than £200,000 (A$334,958) at auction, five times their estimated sale price.

The song featured on his fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which propelled the musician to international rock and pop stardom.

The handwritten lyrics, which were originally estimated to fetch up to £40,000 (A$66,991) sold for £203,500 (A$340,819), including buyer’s premium.

The lyrics to David Bowie’s Starman. Photograph: Omega Auctions

Olivier Varenne, director of acquisitions and alliances and collections at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania in Australia, was the winning bidder.

“We got carried away and paid too much,” Mona’s owner and founder, David Walsh, said on Wednesday.

“It’ll make an appearance in the expanded library we are currently constructing, along with many other items we got carried away with and paid too much for.”

The lyrics, sold as part of a David Bowie and glam rock sale on Tuesday, were previously on display as part of the V&A Museum’s David Bowie Is collection and had been owned by the same person since the 1980s.

The A4 page features handwritten amendments and edits by Bowie, including corrected spelling mistakes and additions.

Paul Fairweather, of Omega Auctions, said: “We had almost unprecedented interest from around the world for this historic piece of memorabilia. We had five telephone lines in operation for the sale as well as bidders online and in the room.

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