video transcript

The Casablanca piano plays on. Sotheby's is set to auction off the Paris piano from the Oscar winning film on December 14th. The historic prop is used during an intensely romantic moment when Sam plays "As Time Goes By" - which was actually the first scene of the movie filmed. Sotheby's vice chairman David Redden. SOUNDBITE: David Redden, vice chairman, sotheby's, saying (English): "Seeing the piano like this is a bit of a revelation because in the movie it's in black and white. And here we are, we see green and yellow and all sorts of things. But it's as it appeared in the movie, except just now in living colour. It would've been made as a small, what they call studio piano which could be wheeled from table to table in a cafe, which is why it's small as it is. Very compact, made in Los Angeles, probably in the late 1930s. The movie of course was filmed in 1942." The piano comes to auction on the 70th anniversary of the film, which is being celebrated with the release of the Blu-Ray version of the movie. In 1988 the 58-key instrument broke auction records when it became the most expensive movie prop ever sold. The piano is estimated to sale for between $800,000-1.2 million.