The buzz at big photo auctions lately has been all about nude supermodels. Perfectly understandable, of course, but how many times can you really stand to see Gisele naked? (OK, no need to answer that). At Sotheby's latest photo sale in London on Tuesday, we're pleased to see some stunning images on offer which while short on supermodel cleavage nonetheless have plenty of appeal. Take for instance this portrait of the beautiful Brigitte Bardot taken by Terry O'Neill 1971 with an estimate of $8,000 - $12,000. Not one of the more expensive items on offer, but worth every penny in our estimation.

Also included in the amazing auction is Helmut Newton's 1975 photo of Elsa Peretti, est. $24,000 - $30,000, and his 1987 portrait of Jodie Foster, est. $14,000 - $18,000; Andy Warhol's Polaroid of Muhammad Ali taken in 1977, est. $10,000 - $14,000; David Bailey's 1969 double portrait of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, est. $20,000 - $30,000; and a recent print made from Bert Stern's famed Marilyn Monroe series (recently aped by Lindsay Lohan), est. $6,000 - $8,000. See the gallery for more.

If you thought the Beatles were so Yesterday, think again. A lock of hair from the late John Lennon sold for an incredible $48,000 at an auction held Wednesday at Gorringes in Worthington. The lock of hair, along with an autographed copy of Lennon's book A Spaniard in the Works, was part of the collection of Betty Glasow, hairdresser to The Beatles during the 1960's filming of A Hard Day's Night and Help.

Also sold at the auction were signed Beatles photographs, including one dedicated to Glasow and signed "George "Dandruff" Harrison" that went for $13,000.

So, what motivated Glasow to part with her treasures after all these years? She says that rather than have these items languishing in a drawer somewhere, she wanted fans to have the opportunity to enjoy them.

John Lennon's glasses, yes the legend himself, are up for auction on the British site 991.com. The Beatle's gold wire rimmed sunglasses are currently owned by a Japanese TV producer named Junishi Yore who got them back in 1966 when he worked as a translator for the Beatles, and they'll come with a handwritten note from Yore explaining how he came to get them from Lennon. Estimates are predicting the auction will end somewhere around $1.5 million or higher, although it's a private auction so we'll have to wait and see when the bidding ends on July 31st.

Perhaps one of the most revered musical instruments in the world (other than Clapton's sweet black Strat, "Blackie") has trumped the previous 'most expensive' piano in the world. One of the most elaborate, painstakingly detailed pieces of hand-craftsmanship - the Steinway "Alma-Tadema" has been outshined by one of the company's most unadorned - the "Model Z". But, much like Blackie, it's the instrument's celebrity owner that actually makes the difference.

The piano on which "Imagine" was written, John Lennon's 1970 Steinway was auctioned off in London to George Michael for £1.45 million (about $2.1 million), who proceeded to use it to record bits of his last album before returning it to in the Beatles Museum in Liverpool because, as he so generously supposed, "the piano was not the type of thing that should be in storage somewhere or being protected, it should be seen by people."

The musically-related real estate keeps coming. The latest is John Lennon's former home in Britain. The six-bedroom home outside Weybridge, Surrey, is where he lived as the Beatles rose to fame. Lennon, his wife Cynthia and son Julian lived at the house from 1964 to 1968. According to the article in Bloomberg, in1968, while Cynthia was in Greece, Lennon brought Yoko Ono to the house known as Kenwood. Cynthia Lennon returned home to find Yoko in her house and wearing her bathrobe. Oh if these walls could talk. The home, which also has a playroom, sauna and swimming pool is up for sale for 5.95 million pounds ($11.1 million).

[Thanks, Lana]

An angry letter written by John Lennon sold for more than $22,000 at a Bonham's auction yesterday. The note was dashed off on a piece of American Airlines notepaper, clearly in a hurry. It was written to a journalist who accused him and the Beatles of ripping off "black" songs, but John defended the band by saying that they "drank, ate and slept the music" and "it wasn't a rip off. It was a love in."  The band started off covering hit songs in dance halls, like "Money" and "Twist n' Shout," before their own songs were "good enough." Included with the letter was a photocopy of the article that prompted it and a copy of the replying letter from the same journalist.

Though some other Lennon pieces have done very well at auction this year, a black felt hat worn by Lennon in the last official Beatles photo shoot failed to sell, despite projections that it could fetch as much as $37,000.

[Image Bonhams]

One of John Lennon's schoolbooks was sold for $226,150 in a London auction of rock memorabilia. The auction house, Cooper Owen, had set a reserve price of more than $175,000 for the book, which was a copybook titled "My Anthology" and contained 10 pages of full color drawings done by the 12-year old Lennon to illustrate the lyrics of poems that were part of his literature curriculum, including The Walrus and the Carpenter and Agincourt.

If only I had known that used schoolbooks could go for so much, I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to unload my old textbooks at the end of every semester at university. Needless to say, the illustration quality in a calculus textbook would have to be fairly high to compete with Lennon's sketches, even as a child.