A guitar used by pop star Prince during his Purple Rain tour fetched �12,000 at auction on Tuesday.

The instrument was bought by comedian Ed Byrne, said a spokeswoman for auctioneers Cooper Owen.

But a set of taped interviews with John Lennon discussing the Beatles' split failed to sell after not reaching the reserve price of �15,000.

Memorabilia connected to Elvis Presley and Courtney Love, widow of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain also failed to reach reserve prices and remained unsold.

Printed flyers for the Sex Pistols' first US tour sold for �110.

The "lost" Lennon tapes, of a radio interview in which Lennon and Yoko Ono discussed the break-up of The Beatles, were tipped to fetch between �20,000 and �30,000.

The three and a half hours of unedited tapes from 1971 are said to contain rambling humour and even a legal summons being served on Lennon, according to the auctioneers.

Dispute

But they remained unsold, as did a customised lifejacket given by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain to his wife Courtney Love as a Valentine's present, and a New Age religious book inscribed by Elvis Presley.

Beatles memorabilia fans were also disappointed by the withdrawal from sale, due to a copyright dispute, of a collection of 45 photos of the early days of the band, performing at the Cavern Club and other Merseyside venues as well as an early gig in Aldershot.

Ted Owen of the auction house said a High Court injunction preventing the sale had been granted to lawyers representing The Beatles' Apple Records in the dispute with the photographs' owner.

But he said he hoped the matter could be resolved amicably at a later date.

Prince's custom-made purple Telecaster-style guitar is elaborately decorated with airbrushed flowers and was used on the 1984-1985 Purple Rain Tour.

The auction house said the lot was sold directly from the collection of ex-New Power Generation drummer Sheila E.

The sale took place at the Cobden Club, a celebrity haunt in London's Kensal Rise area, on Tuesday evening.