Many of the items come from Prince’s former wife Mayte Garcia, who was married to the singer from 1996 to 2000.
A wide variety of personal Prince items have gone up for sale at Nate D. Sanders Auctions in Los Angeles, including a vintage guitar, demo cassettes, wedding china and even a pair of handcuffs. The items come from the collection of the singer’s former manager Owen Husney, guitarist Dez Dickerson and his first wife Mayte Garcia.
A number of Prince items have gone up for auction in Los Angeles.
Among the items are an ‘incredibly rare cassette tape from 1978’, which includes three unreleased songs and three unique versions of released tracks. The cassette comes from the collection of guitarist Dez Dickerson and is named ‘Prince Worktape ’78’.
"Prince originally gave me the cassette in late 1978 because he wanted me to listen to a record he had recorded on side A (a female-fronted funk band whose name I don't remember now),” Dickinson said.
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“Sometime during the next year or so, I used the A side to record some scratch bass and guitar parts for songs I was going to be recording for a rock/power pop demo I was doing, recording over the original content (you can still hear a snippet of the funk record at the end of the side).
"On side B, Prince had his work versions of 6 songs, which I left intact for, at that time, unknown reasons (obviously, we now know it preserved a piece of musical history).”
The singer’s former wife Mayte Garcia has contributed a number of items to the auction, including the diamond engagement ring he gave her in 1996, along with five handwritten love notes he ‘used to lead her on a romantic journey to the ring.’
The ring is the highest priced item in the lot, with a starting bid of $100,000. For $60,000 you can purchase a 1959 vintage Gibson L-series 6-string acoustic guitar, used by Prince in the early 1970s, which comes with a letter of authenticity from his former manager.
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There’s also a set of gold tone handcuffs covered in rhinestones, which were used on stage Prince during the performance of ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ on ‘Soul Train’ in 1994 with Mayte.
The former couple’s wedding china is also up for auction, with plates and cups which feature his famous ‘love simple’. The auction is set to take place on March 17th.
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