Elvis Presley's 24k gold leaf plated piano has sold for $600,000 at Julien's Auctions, setting a new record for the star's memorabilia at auction.

It was among the highlights of a November 7 sale of rock and roll memorabilia in Los Angeles.

Elvis had the gold piano installed in his music room in Graceland

The piano, originally just plain walnut, was built by the Kimball Piano Company in 1928 and was formerly housed in Memphis' Dixon-Myers Hall.

The city put it up for auction in 1955 and Elvis bought it for his mother. Unfortunately for Mrs Presley, it proved impossible to get it into her home and so Elvis had it installed in his substantially larger house.

Later on it followed him to Graceland, taking pride of place in his music room. Wife Priscilla then had it painted in gold leaf for their first wedding anniversary in 1968.

"Anything associated with the life or career of Elvis Presley is highly collectible," auction house CEO Darren Julien explained to CNBC prior to the sale.

"What's important about this piano is that it has huge historical and personal significance to Elvis Presley when he was alive."

The previous record for a piece of Elvis memorabilia was $300,000, set for his first ever recording earlier this year.

The cardigan Kurt Cobain wore during his legendary performance for MTV Unplugged realised $140,800 - a new record for a piece of Nirvana memorabilia.

It had been valued at $60,000.

Cobain gave an intense and otherworldly performance in the 1993 concert. Just a few months later he was found dead at his home in Seattle.

The sale saw a record set for a piece of Beatles memorabilia, with an acoustic guitar John Lennon used to write some of the band's earliest songs selling for $2.4m.

A bass drum played by Ringo Starr on the Ed Sullivan show made $2.1m.

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