Items of Procol Harum tour memorabilia for auction (2)

Proceeds shared by the BJ Wilson Fund / 'Beyond the Pale'

Bid for this item at eBay

When Procol Harum toured the world in 2003, promoting their new album The Well's on Fire, they gradually accumulated strange toys and crazy mementoes – by the time the Union Chapel DVD was filmed, the stage was strewn with seagulls, pigs, clockwork mice, models of George W Bush (a former president of America), a singing M&M homunculus, a stately galleon, a Baby Dumpling, and a fat old Buddha carved in gold.

Gary Brooker has invited 'Beyond the Pale' to auction a few of the surviving items at eBay, the proceeds to be divided between The BJ Wilson Fund (through which Gary is able to help BJ's family) and 'Beyond the Pale'.

So we're inviting bids for this 'Fat Old Buddha', a mysterious and quintessentially Procoloid item which has been spotted, glinting in the penumbra, during countless gigs at the bottom end of Gary Brooker's stage piano. Despite the words of Shine on Brightly, this item is carved not in gold but in wood. It's about 6 inches high, 7 inches wide and 4 inches from front to back.

We imagine it will be bought by a musician, to be exhibited on an instrument in exactly the way it has graced so many Procol Harum concerts. But bids are of course welcome from anybody!

He is initialled 'GB' on the back by The Commander, for authenticity's sake, with the legend (originally from Keith Reid's pen) 'Fat old buddahs'.

The statuette is pictured at the foot of the page with Gary –  in the control room of the studio in his barn in deepest Surrey, UK.

Carved in wood, not gold, despite appearances