Unseen Beatles photographs, a rare copy of the mysterious White Album, signed broken drumsticks, an autographed tour book creepy and more could fetch £326,000 at auction.
Musical memorabilia from The Fab Four will go under the hammer with Heritage Auctions on March 16, in Dallas, Texas, and online. Among the collection is a mysterious copy of ‘The Beatles’, later known as ‘The White Album’ due to its plain white cover, could fetch more than $100,000 (£77,000).
The rare double-album LP, which topped the charts all around the world, is marked ‘No.01’ and believed to be one of four in existence.
The Beatles started numbering the records with that album and over three million copies were produced, the majority bearing six digits apart from this one and a small handful of others.
A concert programme neatly signed by the band along with four broken Ringo drumsticks could sell for $20,000 (£15,000) and is inscribed, ‘To Corker, Best Wishes’.
Beatles superfan Dennis Dailey, started selling the impressive horde with Heritage Auctions last year and the auction is expected to conclude by the end of 2019. There are over 221 Beatles-related items up for grabs in this auction, their combined is believed to bring in $420,000 (£326,000) based on their lowest estimates. Described as one of ‘the biggest Beatles memorabilia collection in the world,’ it took 18 days to pack-up with six to eight people working each day and 53 semi-trucks.
Garry Shrum, director of music memorabilia, said: ‘With it being the 50th Anniversary The White Album is a very special piece.’Especially rereleasing it just before Christmas, you can guess what was in the charts, even after 50 years they still got to pull that off and I love it. ‘Several runs of early numbers are detailed in books, but nobody really knows for sure, but there are very few made with only double numbers.
‘Most we have come across have six and more zeros, but this only has one. ‘This could be the third or fourth in existence, we don’t know, but the odd numbering system is different to the others we have seen. ‘Here’s Ringo’s used drumsticks and a brilliantly autographed tour book, you can tell it was an important autograph. ‘You can tell the Beatles meaningfully signed it for someone close to them due to the quality and placement of the autographs.’They definitely didn’t sign this in a hurry, on the wall or someone’s back, as sometimes there are sloppy autographs, these definitely are not.’You would think drumsticks turn up more recently, but people never thought to pick them up at the time and they were often thrown away.’
Never-before-seen photographs of the Beatles during their first world tour in Los Angeles before shooting to US fame, could fetch over $10,000(£7,7000).
Mr Shrum said: ‘You can imagine here Beatlemania hits America and at first no one took them seriously.
‘Then after the Ed Sullivan show every photographer was trying to get exclusive interviews and photographs, that a lot of them disappeared and were thrown away.’It wasn’t believed the Beatles would stick around, they didn’t know they would be the creative influence they would become.’How every musician in the world would be watching what the Beatles would do next and how they still influence to this day.’
Mannequin replicas with a drum set for $10,000 (£7,7000) and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ultra-rare record promotional display could sell for $6,000 (£4,6000).
A rare ‘Enjoy the Beatles!’ promo poster from 1963-1964, the first of its kind, could fetch more than $4,000 (£3,000).
These accompany other unusual pieces including vintage Halloween costumes of the four with masks selling for $2,400 (£1,8000), inflatable Beatles dolls could fetch $1,500 (£1,1000) and more.
Mr Shrum said: ‘It’s unusual to have all of the costumes and masks at the same time in such great condition and in the original boxes.’At the time people would buy their favourite Beatle, not all four.’Enjoy the Beatles’ is the first one of that, it was printed just in the UK so has never seen light of day in the US, it’s a really early on poster.’
Mr Shrum is excited to see the results of the auction, more so for having run a Beatles specialty store for over 30 years in San Diego, North Hollywood and Arkansas.
In his years, in which he has spoken at over 600 conventions worldwide, he had not owned 75 per cent of the memorabilia this one seller had in his possession.
The Beatles mega-fan had a 2,000 square foot extension built onto his home to house his valuable items.
Mr Shrum said: ‘What we have in progress is the biggest Beatles Memorabilia collection in the world, we started offering it last year and will be through this mountain of stuff by the end of the year.’It took us 53 semi-trucks to bring it in, there’s everything from gold awards to promotional items from Apple Records, to all these weird toys and trinkets.’In the collection there were 36 glass cases that were six-foot-high, all full of memorabilia, so packed-in that you couldn’t see it all.’Then at the end of the room he recreated The Cavern Club with a really nice set of mannequins of the Beatles in replica suits and a drumkit with The Beatles logo.
‘You would look down these cabinets and see them on stage at the other end, it was hard to believe I thought, ‘Am I really seeing this?”
They will all be sold as part of Heritage’s March 16 Entertainment & Music Memorabilia Signature Auction.
Garry added: ‘Ringo and Paul are still on tour, look at how many seats they sell it’s phenomenal and for the amount of money per seat too. ‘Back in 1964, seats in the nosebleeds would cost £250-350, but close-up would cost $5.50 because nobody knew the Beatles.’
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