For sale: Michael Jackson's MTV VMAs and American Music Awards

March 20, 2009 | 10:49 am

As regular Gold Derby readers know, I own what's believed to be the world's largest private collection of historic showbiz awards outside of Jack Nicholson's house. (More details about all that here, here and here.) So I'm not one of those snobs who goes into fits of outrage at the thought that the sanctity of these statuettes somehow gets violated whenever they're bought and sold. If the practice is OK for art treasures, why not showbiz ones as well? And, quite frankly, the latter variety are often just gold-plated, so harrumph, harrumph.

However, I don't own a MTV Video Music Award or American Music Award as yet. Do you? Maybe we can bid against each other next month when Julien's Auctions puts up for sale five of Michael Jackson's MTV Video Music Awards, eight American Music Awards, two Billboard Awards, seven NAACP Image Awards plus lots of other kudos, including gold and platinum record awards.

The auction will be held from April 22 to 25 adjacent to the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Meantime, the items are on public view at the Hard Rock Café in New York's Time Square from March 25 to 28.

Michael Jackson's lawyers recently filed papers to shut down this auction, but that may just be one of those "Wacko Jacko" things that will mysteriously vanish soon. I recently talked about that with auctioneer Darren Julien, one of the most respected dealers in Hollywood memorabilia. He's handled auctions in the past for Cher, Barbra Streisand and U2. I've purchased many of the items in my personal collection from him. Darren assures Gold Derby that the auction will proceed as planned and will be completely legit. Jackson entered into a formal contract with Julien's Auctions to do this sale. Jackson and his manager chose the items to be sold and delivered them to the auction house as follow up. Part of the proceeds will go to the Grammys' MusicCares charity. See more details about the auction here.

Will Kelly Clarkson win any Grammys for her No. 1 album 'All I Ever Wanted'?

Will 'No Line on the Horizon' get U2 a chance at a record third album of the year Grammy?

Photos: Julien's Auctions

Get Gold Derby on Twitter. Join the Gold Derby Group at Facebook. Become friends with Tom O'Neil on Facebook. Get Gold Derby RSS feed via Facebook. RSS Feedburner. RSS Atom.