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Lost-and-found tapes of Beyonce are on the auction block for more than $3 million

There's lost footage: the missing end credits of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the so-called "missing frames" of the Zapruder film, some scenes from Wes Craven's first version of Last House on the Left and the 1973 version of The Wicker Man.

And then there's lost footage: pre-Queen Bey Beyonce Knowles.

A London auction house has set a price of $3.8 million for footage of a 10-year-old Beyonce performing, practicing dance moves and mugging for the camera with her first girl group, Girls Tyme, under a tab on its website labeled "The Beyonce Tapes." The 12 Betamax (!) tapes are unedited, which might make it rough going while watching the 2.5 hours of performance of the girls out of Houston.

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The auction house notes that there's a little over a minute of this footage already available on YouTube, "the only unauthorized use of footage in any form from the collection," at very low quality. But there's a good-quality official advertisement for the tapes available on YouTube, too.

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Ted Owen & Co. is probably betting on Queen Bey herself anteing up the funds. The Outline notes that GQ reported that she has a digital archive of footage, photos and interviews, a la Prince's music archive. And, after listening to Lemonade, Jay Z might need to be the one picking up this tab.

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Bidding started on Nov. 29. The closed auction ends on Jan. 10, so you better come high or stay at home.

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