Freddie Mercury’s World – Part 6 – Awards

Two photos side by side. On the left is a large framed award for 4 million sales of the Platinum Collection box set of Queen's Greatest Hits 1, 2 and 3. The top half of the award shows the 4 band members posing together in dark jackets. Below that is a plaque with text dedicating the award to the band, along with an image of the 3 CDs and the cover of the box set. At the bottom, the number 4 million is expressed as a number, with the six zeroes made of silver CDs with holes in the centre, while the number 4 and the commas separating the thousands are a similar silver colour to match the discs. The picture on the right, meanwhile, shows a Brit award, which is a gold coloured statue of Britannia wearing a helmet and holding a shield with the Union Jack flag on it.

We’ve crossed the halfway point in my look back at the 2023 Sotheby’s exhibition Freddie Mercury: A World Of His Own. I hope you’re finding it interesting so far.

For this post we’re going to look at a whole bunch of awards, because Freddie and Queen were honoured with a deluge of well-earned accolades during and after his lifetime, so there were lots on display in the exhibition. I’m not going to list them all, obviously, but I’m going to present a big selection that I took photos of, to give you a thorough sense of what was there. Most were sold in the Crazy Little Things 2 auction while a few were in the On Stage sale.

A wall filled with disc sales awards for Queen and Freddie Mercury albums and singles.

The vast majority of the sales awards adorned the walls of a room featuring Freddie’s royal cloak and crown (which you’ll see in a later post in this series). There were a huge number of silver, gold and platinum awards there, for the sales of singles and albums, and occasional awards for videos. But there were also some awards scattered around elsewhere too. A lot of the awards for disc sales look very similar by their nature, but there are a few more striking ones in amongst them.

So let’s crack on with it. As before you can click on the images to enlarge them and the award names to find out more, and I hope you enjoy!

Contents

British Awards

To start with, here are a couple of Ivor Novello Certificates Of Honour, for Killer Queen (£19,050) and Bohemian Rhapsody (£25,400). There was another for The Show Must Go On that sold for £15,240 that you can see mixed in with awards from other countries later in this post.

An Ivor Novello Certificate of Honour in an elaborate gilt frame, presented to Freddie Mercury for the song Killer Queen. The text, mainly in a curly script font, reads The P.R.S. Ivor Novello Awards Certificate of Honour 1974/5, Freddie Mercury. This is to certify that in the judgment of the Awards Committee the above named made an outstanding contribution to British Popular Music during this year with Killer Queen.
An Ivor Novello Certificate of Honour in an elaborate gilt frame, presented to Freddie Mercury for the song Bohemian Rhapsody. The text, mainly in a curly script font, reads The P.R.S. Ivor Novello Awards Certificate of Honour 1975/76, Freddie Mercury. This is to certify that in the judgment of the Awards Committee the above named made an outstanding contribution to British Popular Music during this year with Bohemian Rhapsody.

Then there’s a little collection of awards in a glass case, including:

The case also contains a portrait bust of Freddie by Irena Sedlecká (£19,050), but unfortunately I couldn’t get a front-facing shot of that. I’ll be showing a statuette by the artist in a later post that’s really nice though.

Glass case with a selection of awards for Freddie Mercury. Facing us from this angle is an award consisting of concentric squares of red, white and blue from the centre outwards, and at the bottom are large letters saying Hitkrant. Elsewhere in the case is an award that looks like a very large lighter, and the back of a bust of Freddie Mercury's head and upper body.
Glass case with a selection of awards for Freddie Mercury. On the left is a white metal plaque engraved with the Queen crest attached to a black resin stand. To the right of this is an award shaped like a large lighter with a brass plaque on it. Behind that is a brown resin shield with gold plastic crown and eagle motifs, decorated with red and white ribbon. And on the right of the case is a bust of Freddie's head and upper body.

Next, we have a couple of stylish, posthumous awards for the worldwide sales of their greatest hits compilations:

A large framed award for 4 million sales of the Platinum Collection box set of Queen's Greatest Hits 1, 2 and 3. The top half of the award shows the 4 band members posing together in dark jackets, with Brian and Roger at the back and Freddie and John at the front. The band's crest is in the top right corner. At the bottom left of that photo is a square silver plaque with black text that says Presented to Freddie Mercury to recognise EMI worldwide sales in excess of 4,000,000 copies of the 3 CD set Greatest Hits 1, 2 and 3, The Platinum Collection, 2007. To the right of that plaque is an image of the 3 CDs and the cover of the box set. At the bottom, the number 4 million is expressed as a number, with the six zeroes made of silver CDs with holes in the centre, while the number 4 and the commas separating the thousands are a similar silver colour to match the discs.
Platinum sales award for Queen's Absolute Greatest Album. The square frame includes a large photo filling the right side of the 4 band members posing together, with Freddie perched on a high seat while his 3 band members stand around him. Large text at the bottom says 1,100,000 worldwide sales. On the left is an image of the CD and a plaque saying the award is presented to the Freddie Mercury Estate.

And then there are loads of awards from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in the photos below, including:

A gold disc sales award for Queen's self-titled debut album.
Two sales awards for Queen's Platinum Collection – Greatest Hits 1, 2 and 3. Each award is a large box with a black background. A large platinum disc sits in the centre of the background, overlaid with the 3 Greatest Hits discs, which overlap each other. To the left is a silver plaque explaining why the award has been given, and to the lower right is an image of the outer cover of Greatest Hits 1-3 box set, showing the band's crest on a silver background.
Two sales awards for Queen's Greatest Hits 3. Each award is a large box with a black background. A large gold or platinum disc sits in the centre of the background. Overlaying this on the top right is the CD, and below that the album cover, both carrying an image of Freddie singing and looking down over the other 3 band members who are in a line. In a central position to the left of the disc and album art is a gold or platinum plaque explaining why the award has been given. The plaques say the awards are presented to Mary Austin in honour of Freddie Mercury.
2 large silver and 2 large gold disc awards. The silver awards are for the albums Barcelona and News Of The World, while the gold awards are for the albums A Night At The Opera and News Of The World.
2 large platinum and 2 large gold disc awards. The platinum awards are for the albums The Works and Innuendo, while the gold awards are for the albums Mr Bad Guy and A Day At The Races.
BPI gold disc sales awards for Live Killers and The Game.
Large gold disc awards in display boxes with red backgrounds, for the Queen albums Jazz and Sheer Heart Attack.
Large silver disc awards in display boxes with blue backgrounds, for the Queen singles Killer Queen and Somebody To Love.
Large disc awards in display boxes for Queen singles, including a silver disc on a blue background for I Want It All, and a gold disc on a red background for Bohemian Rhapsody
Large silver disc awards in display boxes with blue backgrounds, for the Queen albums Queen and Sheer Heart attack, along with a certificate for Greatest Hits, awarding it Best Selling Album 1981, Second Place.

Overseas Awards

There are also lots of disc sales awards from other countries too, so mixed in amongst the images below (including some more British ones) you can see:

A large round award presented to Queen and Freddie Mercury for the Innuendo album. Against a dark blue background it shows the album artwork, with a smiling figure juggling, in 3D, decorated with imitation gems and silver stars, above a copy of the CD. Below this and to the left on the wall is a much smaller cartel style clock, painted with roses on an olive green background.
Gold disc award for Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
A large framed gold disc against a blue background, with a silver plaque beneath that says To Freddie Mercury of Queen for over 250,000 copies of News of the World. In the centre of the disc is a black label with white curly text listing the tracks on the album.
Disc sales award for The Works, with a large gold disc against a red background.
2 large gold discs on black backgrounds in perspex boxes. Each has a black plaque with white text at the bottom. The top one, for the Sheer Heart Attack album, says Freddie Mercury, congratulations on your first gold album, from your friends at Elektra Asylum records. The plaque for the bottom disc says Freddie Mercury, to commemorate the sale of more than 500,000 copies of A Night At The Opera, from Your Friends at Elektra Asylum Records. The word Night is misspelt as N-I-T-E.
Sales award for the Queen album News Of The World, with 3 silver discs in a large case. Below that is a sales award for The Freddie Mercury album in a much smaller horizontal case, with a CD on the left and the album cover on the right, either side of the plaque in the centre.
An award with 4 gold discs against a red background for the Queen Albums Hot Space, Live Killers, A Day At The Races and News Of The World.
Two disc awards for the album A Kind Of Magic. Both cases contain a large gold disc, but the case on the right is wider, and to the left of the disc are the colourful caricatures of the band members from the album cover, above much smaller images in the same style showing three groups of three people dancing.
A multi-platinum award for sales of Queen's album News Of The World, consisting of 3 large platinum discs arranged in a row, the central disc in the front of and slightly higher than the other two. They are against a black background, as is the white text at the bottom that says Presented to Freddie Mercury to commemorate the sale of more than 3 million copies of the Elektra / Asylum Records long-playing record album News Of The World.
2 disc sales awards for The Freddie Mercury Album. They both show the album cover, with one having 2 overlapping CDs beneath it, while the other has a CD adorned with a blue satin bow tie at the bottom of it.
2 sales awards for The Freddie Mercury Album, one of which has a bow tie attached to the bottom of the disc in the case, plus a Dutch sales award for Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and a commemorative mirror in the style of a concert poster for A Night At The Opera.
A large display case with a black background. At the top, a large silver strip with black letters says Queen Rules Canada. Below it, in the centre, is a silver disc with a red centre that has the word Queen in black letters. Either side of the disc are images of Queen's album covers, 6 per side, from Queen to Hot Space. A silver plaque below the central disc says Presented to Freddie Mercury to commemorate the sale of over 2,500,000 Queen albums in Canada.
Japanese gold disc awards for Flash Gordon and Greatest Hits.
Japanese gold disc awards for Live Killers and Jazz.
Disc sales awards for Queen's Greatest Hits and Innuendo, the latter including a gold cassette tape as well as the CD sticking out from the album cover.
Disc sales awards for Live Magic and News Of The World.
RIAA gold disc sales awards for the albums Live Killers, Jazz and The Game.
RIAA gold disc sales awards for the albums Hot Space, News Of The World and The Works.
Black and white aerial photo of the crowd at Queen's Hyde Park concert in 1976, with text below that says a very big thank you, as well as the names of the four band members. To the right of the photo is an Ivor Novello certificate for The Show Must Go On and a disc award for Living On My Own.
Commemorative gold ticket for Queen and Status Quo at Manchester City Football Ground on 16 July 1986, and disc awards for the albums A Kind Of Magic and the Wayne's World soundtrack.
Disc sales awards for Innuendo and Greatest Hits 1 and 2. The Greatest Hits 2 award has 2 large discs inside its wide case, while the other two awards have just one disc each.
Disc awards for The Freddie Mercury Album and the Queen songs Crazy Little Thing Called Love and We Are The Champions, along with a large copy of the Sheer Heart Attack album artwork, on wood lacquer. The artwork shows the 4 members of the band lying on their back in different directions next to each other.
Disc sales awards for Greatest Hits, The Works and Another One Bites The Dust, plus an Ivor Novello Certificate of Honour for Bohemian Rhapsody.
Sales awards for Hot Space, The Works, The Game, Queen's Greatest Hits, A Day At The Races and News Of The World, all with large discs in glass cases.
Disc sales awards for A Night At The Opera, the soundtrack to the We Will Rock You musical, The Freddie Mercury Album, Sheer Heart Attack and News Of The World.
Disc sales awards for A Night At The Opera, Jazz, The Freddie Mercury Album, Crazy Little Thing Called Loe and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Disc awards for the album The Works and the single Living On My Own.
Disc awards for Queen's Greatest Hits, We Are The Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Disc sales awards for Greatest Hits, We Are The Champions, Another One Bites The Dust, Don't Stop Me Now and I Want To Break Free.
3 disc awards for the Freddie Mercury solo compilation Lover Of Life, Singer Of Songs, plus 3 Japanese disc awards for You're My Best Friend, Somebody To Love and Bicycle Race.

Video Awards

There were a few awards for videos among the other ones displayed above, including:

Gold Camera awards from the US International Film And Video Festival for The Show Must Go On, Greatest Flix 2 and Freddie Mercury Tribute Trailer.
Certificate for Creative Excellence in the Performing Arts category from the US Industrial Film And Video Festival for I’m Going Slightly Mad.

Statuettes

This small collection of statuettes were in the On Stage section of the gallery, but are worth including here for completeness:

A bronze statuette of Freddie Mercury posing with legs outstretched and one arm pumping the air above him.
Two awards for Freddie Mercury. On the left is a Britannia Centenary Award, a vertical grey column that curves in and out in the centre. On the right is a Brit award, a gold coloured statue of Britannia wearing a helmet and holding a shield with the Union Jack flag on it.
Two Ivor Novello awards, one viewed from the front, the other from the back, each consisting of a bronze statuette of Greek muse Euterpe on a circular black wooden plinth.
An Ivor Novello award, consisting of a bronze statuette of Greek muse Euterpe on a circular black wooden plinth.
An MTV Music Video award, consisting of a silver statuette of an astronaut holding a flag with the MTV logo.
A bronze bust of Sir Laurence Olivier's head. A gold plaque on the base has black text that reads Freddie, Time, Happy Birthday, Dave Clark, 5th September 1986

Conclusion

And that’s it for the awards, so as always I hope you found it interesting. Next week we’ll look at a wide variety of items that Freddie collected during his lifetime. See you then!

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.

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