Demo by 13-year-old Ed Sheeran sells for 'incredible price' of £50,000
A rare demo made up of love songs written by a 13-year-old Ed Sheeran has sold at auction for £50,000.
Sheeran, from Framlingham in Suffolk, made around 20 copies of the album, called Spinning Man. The 29-year-old previously admitted he did not want anyone to "get hold of a copy", so he has 19 in his possession.
One of the demos, which features songs with titles such as Addicted and Misery, was unearthed from a drawer where it had been "forgotten" for many years.
It sold at auction on Tuesday for £50,000, which amounts to about £61,500 when including the buyer's premium, auctioneers said.
The demo was expected to be sold for around £10,000 - five times less than the eventual amount.
Auctioneer Paul Fairweather, from Omega Auctions, said: "An incredible price! We expected it to sell well but that certainly exceeded our expectations.
"It was a fierce battle between four or five very serious bidders and we were blown away with the final price."
Sheeran was staying with relatives and sleeping on their sofa, while making money by busking, when he handed a copy of Spinning Man to a friend of the relatives.
The man's brother, Kevin, 48, who does not want to give his surname, sold the CD.
"My brother put it in a drawer and forgot about it," he said last month.
In his book, Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey, the star, who now has an estimated fortune of more than £200 million, said he wrote the songs after his first love left him heartbroken.
"In 2004, I made my very first album, Spinning Man, named after a picture that my dad had," he said.
"I burnt the CDs myself and made the covers. There were 14 songs, and they were all songs that rhymed.
"One lyric went: 'I'm a typical average teen if you know what I mean'.
"There are probably 20 copies of Spinning Man in existence, and I have 19 of them. I don't want anyone else to get hold of a copy."
Also sold at the auction was Jimi Hendrix's pink feather boa, which fetched £14,500.
The star wore the accessory during his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, which catapulted him to fame in 1967.