He may be ‘always on our mind’ - but Prince trumps the King

One of the biggest icons of the 20th century, Elvis, forever known as The King, would have turned 80 on Thursday 8th January.

To celebrate, eBay has looked at who is the King of Music Memorabilia on the online marketplace and found that the (Elvis) King has been trumped by Prince – and young pretenders, One Direction, who have sold nearly 150,000 items in just three months.

Nonetheless, with more than 70,000 listings for Elvis memorabilia on eBay.co.uk from mugs to masks and even his personal effects, he’s clearly ‘always on our mind’. And in the last three months, 50,000 items celebrating Elvis have sold on the online marketplace – meaning a piece of Elvis memorabilia sells every four minutes on eBay.co.uk. Unusual items that have sold include an Elvis pinball machine and a drinking glass owned by the King, as well as more than 2,000 Elvis wigs.

Despite not having had a No 1 single since “Suspicious Minds” in 1969, Elvis is still ahead of other musical favourites including Michael Jackson (sales of 23,000) and Madonna (sales of 19,100).

See below for eBay.co.uk’s top 15 ranking of musical stars’ memorabilia sales:

One Direction 142,000

Prince 58,000

Elvis 50,000

The Beatles 36,000

U2 30,000

Pink Floyd 26,000

Michael Jackson 23,000

Kylie 19,800

Madonna 19,100

Beyonce 18,400

Eminem 14,000

Abba 11,500

Led Zeppelin11,400

Britney Spears11,150

Wham! 8,850

Laura Wilkinson-Rea of eBay comments: “They may have come third on X Factor, but there’s only ‘One Direction’ for sales of their memorabilia – and that’s up. But will they be as popular when they turn 80 as the original ‘pop idol’, Elvis? Only time will tell.”