author: Claire

source: Press Release

X JAPAN leader YOSHIKI has put his "Crystal" piano up for auction to raise money for the Japan Relief Fundraising Auction in conjunction with Yahoo! Japan.

The auction for the clear Plexiglass Kawai grand piano originally started on April 17th when, in the first few minutes, the bidding shot from $.01 to $42,000. Within hours, one online bidder pledged a staggering $73-million. The auction was then postponed on April 19th due an unexpectedly high volume of traffic on the site and such high bidding prices, which required bidder confirmation procedures. Yahoo! Auction's systems have now been restructured, new bidding policies are in place, and Yahoo! had identified the last confirmed bid for the piano as $512,231.70. The auction will run through until April 28th and can be found here.

In addition to the auction of his "Crystal" piano, YOSHIKI is spearheading a major celebrity auction to benefit the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami. His "Yoshiki Foundation America" has already received items from Marilyn Manson, Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, comic book legend Stan Lee, Robert Pattinson, James Franco and Reese Witherspoon.

More information on "Yoshiki Foundation America" can be found here.