Former New Order bassist Peter Hook is eyeing a Blue Money-day by flogging papers from the band’s bitter legal fight.
The 65-year-old, known as Hooky, wants at least £600,000 for the boxes of legal documents from 2015.
The bizarre collection is one of over 400 lots offered by the star, who co-founded Joy Division before singer Ian Curtis’s suicide led to the band becoming New Order in 1980, with Bernard Sumner on vocals.
The group reached a private settlement four years ago after Hooky sued former bandmates Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert.
He claimed he was losing millions in royalties after quitting the Manchester group in 2007.
Buyers can now “read for yourself what the fight was about and decide who was right and who was wrong”, the lot description says.
Hooky says of the files: “This lot cost over £2.5million at least, as well as the blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, embarrassment and the huge smiles of the lawyers on both sides while they ordered their new Mercedes.
"Sadly, it got us absolutely nowhere except near bankruptcy.”
Hooky’s NME Award from when New Order were granted Godlike Genius status in 2005 is also up for grabs along with his Ivor Novello award for 1990 chart-topping World Cup song World in Motion.
Several of his bass guitars, rare vinyls, artwork and the audio rig The End from New Order’s “farewell” concert in Buenos Aires in 2006 are also being sold.
A framed lighting plan for a New Order and Chemical Brothers gig in San Francisco in 2005 is up for £60, along with signed records at around the same starting price.
New Order’s songs, which include True Faith and Regret, became huge club hits owing in part to Hooky’s melodic basslines.
After a 1990s hiatus, they reformed for 2001 album Get Ready.
Hooky left six years later after they reportedly fell out over him playing Joy Division songs with his new band, The Light, and trademarking the name of the legendary Manchester music venue the Hacienda nightclub – plus focusing on a career as a DJ.
In a 2011 interview he described the feud as “a bunch of fat old men arguing”, adding: “It’s pathetic but we’re all happy to keep doing it.”
The collection will be auctioned for four days by Omega Auctions in Merseyside from October 4 with cash supporting the Epilepsy Society and The Christie charity.
