Regarded as the most influential band of all time, The Beatles, unsurprisingly, have die-hard fans in every pocket of the globe – and now collectors can purchase the very best of the rock band’s memorabilia in an online auction.
On 10 April, Julien’s Auctions is hosting The Beatles at the Hard Rock, a sale comprising 248 Beatles-related items. Although the sale is as unique as it is varied, offering scrapbooks, photographs, household products (who wouldn’t want a Paul McCartney mug?), jewellery accessories, clothing, board games and just about every object and category you could possibly imagine, there are even rarer and more special items for sale.
One of the most intriguing items is undoubtedly a pair of vintage camel wide-cut corduroy trousers, owned and worn by John Lennon. Although no labels are present, the lot is accompanied by a copy of a letter from Barry Jarlett, which states the trousers were formerly the property of Lennon and gifted to his mother, Dorothy Jarlett, who was a housekeeper at Lennon’s Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey, in the 1960s.
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
Lennon fans would also be interested in the singer-songwriter’s drawings. Several of his signed ink on paper sketches are offered in the sale.
And for fans of Paul McCartney, two guitars played by the musician are for sale.
The first (pictured left) is an original Gibson J-160E circa 1966, rented by Paul McCartney from Harris Hire in Beckenham, England. This acoustic guitar was rented to McCartney on 21 February 2002, by Rose Hackney Barber production company for McCartney at Dukes Island Studios, a West London-based studio complex. It was used for a rehearsal or video shoot prior to McCartney’s 2002 Driving World Tour. Interestingly, while McCartney is left-handed, he is known to play right-handed instruments. This was usually achieved by flipping right-handed guitars and stringing them backwards.
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The second (pictured right and photographed with McCartney) is a Tranquillo Giannini S.A. acoustic guitar bought by Mary Hopkin from a Swansea retailer and used during numerous performances and recordings. Paul McCartney played the guitar in September 1968 during rehearsals for a television show called Magpie.
The most expensive item in the sale – with an estimate of $100,000-160,000 (£81,000-130,000) – is a plain sheet with handwritten lyrics to the 1968 Beatles hit Hey Jude, written by Paul McCartney in black felt pen and used in the studio for recording. The lines in the lyrics are numbered from 1 through to 4, with notations in between such as ‘BREAK’ and ‘Ending. Fading’.
McCartney used the lyrics during the recording at Trident Studios, London, in July 1968 and later gifted them to a studio engineer. McCartney famously wrote the song for John Lennon’s son Julian as a source of comfort during the divorce of his parents, John and Cynthia Lennon. The song was originally called ‘Hey Jules’.
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And though there are plenty more fascinating items up for grabs, we end this selection with an original stage from the concert venue Lathom Hall in Seaforth, Liverpool, where The Beatles had their first advertised gig and continued to perform ten more times.
Lathom Hall became a venue that was associated with Merseybeat. The Beatles first played there on 14 May 1960, in a show promoted by Brian Kelly when they were still known as The Silver Beats. They then played ten more shows at the venue in January and February of 1961 under the official band name The Beatles. The group’s final performance at Lathom Hall was on 25 February 1961 – George Harrison’s 18th birthday.
Lathom Hall is perhaps better known for the famous fight between Stuart Sutcliffe and a few others that resulted in John Lennon breaking a finger and Sutcliffe suffering a fractured skull and concussion that some believe led to Sutcliffe’s death sixteen months later. The fight started as a result of a few concert-goers picking on and beating up Sutcliffe, with Lennon and Pete Best coming to his rescue. The stage measures approximately 6 by 3 metres and is accompanied by a letter from Brian Corrigan, who purchased Lathom Hall in 1989 and reopened it as a throwback bar for Merseybeat fans.
For those interested in past sales of Beatles memorabilia, John Lennon's main composing instrument for the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's 1967 masterpiece album, the piano from his Kenwood home (pictured left), sold at Sotheby’s in 2016 for £871,815. On this, Lennon composed Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, A Day in the Life, and many more.
Pictured right is the autographed manuscript of John Lennon’s lyrics for A Day in the Life, the final track on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. This comprises two pages on a single sheet of unruled writing paper – and sold for a staggering £827,320 at Sotheby’s in 2010.
John Lennon’s sunglasses sold for £137,500 at Sotheby’s in 2019: 500% above its pre-sale estimate of £6,000-8,000.
