A collection of 22 love letters written by Tupac Shakur have sold for $75,600 (£58,650) at auction.
Described by Sotheby’s auction house in New York as "incredibly sweet and at times steamy”, the hand-written correspondence is from the rapper to one of his classmates at the Baltimore School for the Arts.
Shakur’s letters were written when he was 16, and include details of his relationship with a high school sweetheart named Kathy Loy.
The letters include Shakur declaring his love for Loy, and appearing to come to terms with her calling off their relationship.
“I don’t want anyone but you but that’s just me,” Shakur writes in one letter. “Your [sic] the first girl that’s done this to me!”
Shakur signs off many of the letters with heart illustrations and Cupid arrows.
A plastic crown worn by The Notorious BIG in his final photoshoot before his death also smashed auction estimates and sold for $594,750 (£461,404).
Vice president of Sotheby's books and manuscripts department, Cassandra Hatton, said the letters and the crown offer an "introspective look, in their own way, at the personalities behind their respective public personas”.
