Late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury's private collection coming up for action

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - A "never-before-seen" cache of items that belonged to late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury will go up for auction in September, a charity set up by his surviving bandmates said Wednesday.

Some 1,500 items that were collected over 30 years by Mercury, Queen’s energetic singer and songwriter, will go on display at Sotheby's in London this summer before they are sold in September.

He kept the items at his Garden Lodge home in Kensington in west London and when he died in 1991, Mercury left both the house and collection to his longtime friend Mary Austin.

The collection includes original lyrics to some of his band Queen's best-known songs and a selection of his signature stage costumes, paintings, as well as some other personal belongings.

"It was important to me to do this in a way that I felt Freddie would have loved, and there was nothing he loved more than an auction. Freddie was an incredible and intelligent collector who showed us that there is beauty and fun and conversation to be found in everything," Austin said in a statement released by the Mercury Phoenix Trust.

Before the auction, the collection will be displayed at Sotheby's – a well-known marketplace for art and luxury – from Aug. 4 to Sept. 5, which would have been his 77th birthday.

A portion of the proceeds of the sale will be donated to both the Mercury Phoenix Trust and to the foundation of one of Freddie’s greatest friends, the Elton John Aids Foundation.

Following Mercury’s death from AIDS-related causes, the remaining members of Queen organized an AIDS awareness concert and used the proceeds to launch the Mercury Phoenix Trust, a charity that fights HIV/AIDS.