LONDON (AP) — Freddie Mercury ’s prized piano that he used to compose “Bohemian Rhapsody” and other hits by Queen sold for more than $2 million Wednesday as some of the late singer’s massive collection of flamboyant stage costumes, fine art and original lyrics were auctioned in a sale that broke records.

Items connected to the operatic “Rhapsody,” the band’s most enduring hit, brought a premium with hand-written lyrics to the song selling for about 1.4 million pounds ($1.7 million) and a gold Cartier brooch saying “Queen number 1” given to each band member by their manager after the song topped the charts, selling for 165,000 pounds ($208,000).

A Victorian-style silver snake bangle Mercury wore with an ivory satin catsuit in a video for the song — long before the days of MTV — set a record for the highest price ever paid at auction for a piece of jewelry owned by a rock star, Sotheby’s said.

The bracelet went for 698,500 pounds ($881,000) — 100 times its estimated low price. The item broke a record set when John Lennon’s leather and bead talisman sold for 295,000 pounds ($368,000) in 2008, Sotheby’s said.

The eclectic collection of objects were amassed by Mercury after Queen’s glam-rock produced an avalanche of hits that allowed the singer to achieve his dream of living a Victorian life “surrounded by exquisite clutter.”

Mercury’s close friend, Mary Austin, to whom he left his house and his possessions when he died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991 at 45, is selling it all — more than 1,400 items.

A mere 59 items of that “clutter” sold for 12.2 million pounds ($15.4 million), including a buyer’s premium, that blew away estimates in the four-and-a-half hour auction. Bidders from 61 countries took part in person, online and by phone.

Mercury wrote, “Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?” in “Rhapsody,” and the answer to the question from well-heeled fans seemed to be “No,” as they bid fortunes — large and larger — to grab a piece of the late singer’s clothing, awards and original hand-written drafts to classics such as “Killer Queen” and “We Are the Champions.”

Depending how you looked at it, the champions of the night may have been Sotheby’s or Austin or a few charities she’s promised to donate an undisclosed portion of the proceeds to.

Or it could have been the buyers of one-of-a-kind memorabilia who won. One man raised his hands over his head in victory and hugged the woman seated next to him after bidding 635,000 pounds ($801,500) for the rhinestone-studded crown and red fake fur cloak Mercury wore on stage at the end of every show during Queen’s last tour in 1986.

The auction opened with the sale of the graffiti-tagged door to the garden of Mercury’s home that quickly blew past the high estimate of 25,000 pounds ($31,250) projected before the sale and led to a bidding war that lasted nearly 20 minutes.

The green door covered in hand-painted love notes from fans who made a pilgrimage to the house in the tony Kensington section of London sold for an eye-popping 412,750 pounds ($521,000).

All of the proceeds of the sale of a Cartier onyx and diamond ring given to Mercury by his friend, Elton John, that sold for 273,000 pounds ($344,000) were to go to the “Rocket Man” singer’s AIDS charity.

Art sold at the auction included prints by Pablo Picasso (190,500 pounds; $240,000), Salvador Dalí (48,260 pounds; $60,900); and Marc Chagall (63,500; $80,000), antique furniture and numerous cat figurines.

For the past month, fans of Mercury who couldn’t afford those kind of prices — or just wanted to see his high-top Adidas, diamond brooches, or a sequined jacket — could view them for free in Sotheby’s galleries. More than 140,000 visitors from around the world queued up outside the elegant auction house to take a tour.

Publicity from “Freddie Mercury: A World of his Own” drove up bidding for online auctions that began last month and closes next week.

Even items being sold online that had seemed like they might be in reach for some average buyers eclipsed pre-sale estimates.

A collection of chopsticks once estimated to fetch 40-60 British pounds ($50-75) had a current bid 1,200 pounds ($1,500) Wednesday.

One of the quirkier items, a silver moustache comb from Tiffany & Co, that had been expected to set a buyer back 400 to 600 pounds ($500—750) had a bid at 35,000 pounds ($43,750).

The Yamaha baby grand piano that Mercury wrote some of Queen’s greatest hits on was one of the few items that sold for less than its estimated price tag, though it still sold for the most amount of money.

It had been expected to sell for as much as 3 million pounds ($3.75 million) but sold for 1.7 million pounds ($2.2 million). Sotheby’s said it was the highest price ever paid for a composer’s piano, but they didn’t provide information on the previous record.

Other items that were treasured by fans were Mercury’s draft lyrics to “Somebody to Love” (241,000 pounds; $304,000), and “Don’t Stop Me Now” and “We Are the Champions,” which both fetched the same final prices: 317,500 pounds; $400,700.

The drafts showed songs at their inception, with “Bohemian Rhapsody” scratched on stationery from the defunct British Midland Airways. The song was originally named “Mongolian Rhapsody” before that was crossed out.

The song ends with the words: “Nothing really matters to me,” a line that certainly didn’t apply to Mercury’s myriad possessions.

DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government is taking a big step toward forcing a defiant Tennessee company to recall 52 million air bag inflators that could explode, hurl shrapnel and injure or kill people.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday said it has made an initial decision that the inflators made by ARC Automotive Inc., and under license by another company, are defective. The agency scheduled a public hearing for Oct. 5, a required step before deciding to seek a court-ordered recall.

In May the agency asked ARC to recall the inflators, which it says are responsible for at least seven injuries and two deaths in the U.S. and Canada since 2009. But ARC has refused to issue a full-scale recall, setting the stage for the possible court fight.

Messages were left Tuesday seeking comment from ARC. The company maintains that no safety defect exists, that NHTSA’s demand is based on a hypothesis rather than technical conclusions, and that the agency has no authority to order a parts manufacturer to announce recalls.

“These air bag inflators may rupture when the vehicle’s air bag is commanded to deploy, causing metal debris to be forcefully ejected into the passenger compartment of the vehicle,” NHTSA wrote in an initial decision document. “A rupturing air bag inflator poses an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death to vehicle occupants.”

NHTSA wants ARC to recall inflators in driver and passenger front air bags from at least a dozen automakers. Neither ARC nor the auto industry has released a full list of vehicle models with the kind of air bag inflators that have exploded. But at least 25 million of the 284 million vehicles on U.S. roads are believed to contain them.

Owners of vehicles made by at least a dozen auto brands — Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Ford, Toyota, Stellantis, Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Porsche, Hyundai and Kia — are left to wonder anxiously whether their vehicles contain driver or front passenger inflators made by ARC.

Though ARC is resisting a full-scale recall, automakers have conducted seven smaller recalls of inflators since 2017 that were attributed to isolated manufacturing problems. Those recalls included one that General Motors announced in May involving nearly 1 million vehicles. Ultimately, automakers are responsible for the recalls.

Initially NHTSA said that an estimated 67 million inflators should be recalled, but it revised the number to 52 million due to manufacturer responses in its investigation that over-counted the number, the agency said in documents issued Tuesday.

NHTSA contends that byproducts from welding during manufacturing can clog a vent inside the inflator canister that is designed to let gas escape to quickly fill air bags in a crash. In the defective products, pressure can build to the point where the canister is blown apart.

The inflators that NHTSA seeks to recall are from before 2018, when ARC finished installing scopes to monitor welding byproducts and the vents. NHTSA said in April that it was unaware of any explosions involving inflators that were manufactured after the scopes were installed.

ARC, acquired in 2016 by Chinese real estate developer Yinyi Group, has said in letters to the government that it can’t state for sure whether its inflators might rupture again.

“Even with appropriate industry standards and efforts by manufacturers to minimize the risks of failures, the manufacturing processes may not completely eliminate the risk of occasional or isolated failures,” ARC wrote.

The company further argued that the federal motor vehicle safety act “does not require vehicles and equipment to never experience a failure in the field. Rather the Safety Act seeks to protect the public against unreasonable risks.”

ARC said that during NHTSA’s eight-year investigation into the inflators, air bag makers, automakers and the government have been informed of any unexplained ruptures on the roads.

But NHTSA wrote on Tuesday that it’s aware of seven U.S. ruptures of ARC inflators and at least two outside the U.S. A rupture happened as recently as March 22, the agency said, adding that inflators have exploded outside of groups that were previously recalled.

“An inflator that explosively ruptures, propelling metal fragments at high velocity into an occupied passenger compartment of a motor vehicle — and into the occupants themselves — cannot simply be dismissed as a normal manufacturing anomaly, with vehicle owners left uninformed yet bearing the risk of the peril they and their occupants face,” the agency wrote.

One person who died after an ARC inflator explosion was Marlene Beaudoin, a 40-year-old mother of 10 from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She was struck by metal fragments when her 2015 Chevrolet Traverse SUV was involved in a minor crash in 2021. Beaudoin and four of her sons had been on their way to get ice cream. The sons were not hurt.

Steve Polich, a Michigan attorney representing Beaudoin’s family in a lawsuit against ARC, General Motors and air bag assembly maker Toyoda Gosei, welcomed NHTSA’s finding and said in an email that it supports his case.