SET YOUR CALENDAR FOR THE GARAGE SALE OF ALL TIME

In April, an extraordinary auction will provide an unprecedented look into the private world of Michael Jackson. More than 2,000 items, ranging from personal effects and costumes to pieces from Jackson's private art collection as well as fittings and furnishings from his Neverland ranch, will be up for sale at a four-day public auction at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.

At auction will be the most astonishing collection of objects ever seen in a celebrity home. "It seemed as if everything he owned was made of bronze and marble and gold," said long time celebrity auctioneer Michael Doyle, who catalogued the sale items, as well as determining their value, in a two month painstaking process.
Jackson surrounded himself with regal finery. There were suits of armour, display cases of custom-made crowns and an ornately carved throne with red velvet upholstering in his bedroom.

Currently housed in a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the famed gates of the Neverland ranch now sit against a wall. The interior of the warehouse is littered with the ornaments that once decorated the grounds. There are bronze statues of frolicking cherubs, replica marble busts of Roman emperors, a huge statue of Prometheus that used to sit on a skull near the entrance. On shelves there are child-size diesel-powered race cars that used to zoom around the grounds. There is a Pope-mobile-style electric buggy fitted with tinted windows and stereo system. Another buggy has the King of Pop's face painted on its bonnet.
The sale also includes vintage video game machines, as well as Jackson's collection of 18th- and 19th-century art. There are books about Disney, the Three Stooges, Peter Pan and Alfred Hitchcock, as well as a collection of black history books, including the autobiography of Malcolm X. Then there is a selection of his own stage costumes, dating back from the days of the Jackson 5 through to the present. There is one of the fedoras he wore in the video for Billie Jean; a pair of trousers so studded with diamanté that they feel as heavy as chain mail; there are customised military jackets, featuring insignia surely acquired on his global travels - including badges from the Royal Air Force and the Thai Narcotics Bureau.
And all at bargain rates. Own a piece of history, or just pick up an item or two to complete a room in your castle, the Jackson auction will certainly be a real circus. Some might even say it will be a real "thriller."