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Elvis Presley’s gold lion-head ring has just sold for £33,500 at auction, while his first Las Vegas contract, dating from 1956, went for £28,000. Both sold in the UK but to US collectors.

When it comes to the world of entertainment – rock and pop, films and suchlike – memorabilia follows the same rules that religious relics would have followed in the Middle Ages. Think about all those Renaissance churches in Italy, France and Spain with a splinter from the Holy Cross, a saint’s finger bone and the rest. The idea is that the closer you can get to the individual, the closer you also get to God.

It’s the same for items associated with the music greats, like Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Bowie and the rest. A signature is a good start; a signed album, concert programme or other memento is even better. Stage and screen clothing, unique musical instruments and highly personal items like Elvis’s ring are the jackpot. A Hendrix guitar from a famous concert would make millions: the 1968 Stratocaster he played at Woodstock sold to Paul Allen of Microsoft for his Jimi Hendrix Museum in Seattle for $2 million. There are even investment funds dedicated to this sort of thing. Eric Clapton owned four of the ten most expensive guitars ever sold. It’s all about the rock gods in the end.