Huge Beatles Memorabilia Auction

Lots of Beatle items come up for auction and on quite a regular basis too. But it’s a little rare to have an entire auction dedicated entirely to Beatle or Beatle-related content.

TracksAuctions.com was established in the UK in 1989 and has developed a worldwide reputation in the field of pop memorabilia. They have over 35 years experience in trading at the highest level in Beatle and rock ‘n roll collectibles.

Their latest auction is a bit of a treasure trove of items. Anyone looking through the extensive list of lots will have a differtent set of highlights that jump out for them. Or maybe these are interest?

Well, here are the standout items for us.

Lot 7. Apple Employee Telephone and Address Book. This would be truly fascinating to flip through. It is a handwritten telephone and address book from the 1970s and contains Beatles addresses and phone numbers including George Harrison, Ringo Starr (Monte Carlo and L.A), and Paul McCartney.

In the photo above you can see an entry for former Apple Records boss, the late Neil Aspinall. Due to the wonders of Google Maps you can go and have look at where he once lived:

It looks like a very nice area, and if you go for a bit of a wander down the street you might notice the house across the road is called Strawberry Fields! Do you think the owners know they live opposite a former residence of a boss of the Beatles empire?

Other influential names in the book include Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Nat Weiss, Robert Stigwood, Tony Barrow, Peter Brown, Ron Kass, Freda Kelly, Tony Palmer, Denis O’Dell, Derek Taylor, Timothy Leary, Victor Spinetti, Peter Sellers, and Eric Idle, along with numerous record companies, recording studios, media outlets, and other businesses frequented by the Fabs.

Lot 9. Various Artists Apple Records Acetate. This is a 12-inch acetate record containing 23 tracks by various artists. The acetate is on the Apple Corps Ltd. 3 Savile Row Custom Recording label. Was this compilation ever planned for release on Apple, or is it just a party disc put together for fun by the engineers at Apple Studios?

Lot 12. Delaney And Bonnie 1969 Apple Records Withdrawn Album. This one was definitely intended for release by Apple on 30th May 1969, but it was withdrawn due to contractual reasons. As such catalogue number SAPCOR 7 has become very rare indeed. What we have here is one of a small number of pre-release copies that were pressed. In his excellent book Those Were The Days – The Beatles And Apple, Stefan Granados says: “Apple had planned to release their album entitled ‘Accept No Substitute’ on 30th May. Copies of the album had been pressed and were waiting for covers when Apple cancelled….The plan may have been scuttled in part by Apple’s reluctance to pay advances but the inconvenient fact that Delaney and Bonnie were under contract to Elektra Records in the United States is likely to have played a more significant role in the non-appearance of a Delaney and Bonnie album on Apple. For the next year or so, lucky visitors to the Apple office would be given copies of the sleeveless Apple pressing of the album. Copies would also be given to any interested Apple staff and artists.

Lot 41. The Beatles ‘Love Me Do’ A-Label Demonstration Record. Who wouldn’t want a copy of this in their collection. It takes you right back to just before it all began. This is the “demonstration record” sent out to radio stations in the UK heralding an unknown band from Liverpool. An extremely rare Parlophone white and red ‘A-label’ debut single of ‘Love Me Do’/’P.S. I Love You’. The single was released with the catalogue number 45-R 4949 on October 5, 1962. Even McCartney is misspelled as McArtney on both sides!

Lot 43. The Beatles ‘A Hard Day’s Night’/’Things We Said Today’ 78 RPM. Another grail item for many collectors. This an extremely rare 1964, 10-inch, 78rpm pressing from India of The Beatles single, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’/’Things We Said Today’. The record comes in an original Parlophone paper sleeve too.

Lot 114. The Beatles 1968 Mono ‘White Album’ Number 0000012. Yes, it’s a little beat up, but who wouldn’t want a copy of this rare, low numbered UK mono vinyl pressing of The Beatles’ White Album in their collection? It is number 0000012.

Lot 131. Freda Kelly’s Collection of Fan Club Flexi Discs 1963 to 1969. The Beatles UK Christmas flexi discs are collectable at any time. How much more then would be a complete set (all seven discs) from the woman who ran The Beatles Fan Club from1962 to 1972? Freda’s original flexis are housed in a 1960s hardback record case with her handwritten name and address inside.

Added to the value and collectability is that these exact same discs were used by Apple to produce From Then To You, the 1970 UK LP compilation of all the Beatles Fan Club Christmas messages. Freda recalled that when they came to produce the album EMI didn’t have a complete set of tapes, and nobody at Apple owned a complete set of the flexis. She remembers being asked by Peter Brown to take this exact same set down to Savile Row where they were copied in order to produce the Christmas Fan Club album.

Lot 139. The Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney Autographed ‘White Album’. This is a US album sleeve for the 1968 self-titled album The Beatles, aka the White Album. It has the second highest expected sale price in this Tracks auction of between £25,000 – £35,000 (US$33,000 – $47,000 or AUD$48,000 – $68,000). The reason? It is autographed on the gatefold by both John Lennon and Paul McCartney. John has signed in red felt tipped pen and Paul has autographed in black ballpoint pen. The autographs were signed in the USA in the 1970s. Lennon’s autograph dates to circa 1975 and McCartney’s to 1975/1976.

Lot 206. Paul McCartney ‘McCartney’ Album Press Release. This is an original US press release from April 1970. It is on Apple letterhead and is an important document in the history of the band because it became one of the first public signals that The Beatles were no more. Sent out with promo copies of Paul McCartney’s solo LP McCartney, it consists of four sides of questions and answers relating to the recording. The answers McCartney gave to some of the questions were directly responsible for the subsequent “Paul Quits The Beatles” newspaper headlines and a furore over the group splitting up. The final page bears a printed Paul McCartney signature. Also included are three black and white promotional photographs. One of Paul, one of Paul and Linda and one of Paul and his daughter Mary.

Lastly, to the most expensive lot likely in this auction…..

Lot 246. Paul McCartney November 1966 Hand Drawn Stage Designs For The Four Tops London Performance. In November, 1966 the US group The Four Tops were due to play London’s Saville Theatre, then owned by Beatle manager, Brian Epstein. In preparation for the shows he wanted some spectacular backdrops for the stage and commissioned none other than Paul McCartney to come up with the designs. Paul presented his ideas to Epstein and John Lyndon, a NEMS employee and Director of Productions at the Saville. On a large piece of white paper McCartney hand-sketched and annotated 12 images to be considered and one of these was used for the Four Tops first-ever UK performance.

This item is definitely unique and is expected to fetch in the vicinity of £40,000 – £60,000 (US$53,000 – $80,000 or AUD$78,000 – $117,000).

Well, these are some of the standout lots for us. Have a look through the four pages of treasure on the auction site and let us know which are yours. The Beatles Memorabilia Auction starts on September 27 and runs until October 6.

All items sold through TracksAuctions.com have a lifetime guarantee of authenticity and a money-back warranty.

Lennon Connection: The NFT Collection

NFT’s, or digital artworks, have become all the rage. And it looks like John Lennon’s son Julian is using them to sell one-off digital representations of some of the Beatle treasures from his personal collection: five gifts he received from his father, and one from Paul McCartney.

NFT stands for Non-fungible token. “Non-fungible” means that it is something unique and can’t be replaced with something else. NFT’s can be anything digital (such as drawings or music), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art. Oh, and you pay for them in Ethereum – a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin.

The Lennon NFTs are being sold through YellowHeart, an online site specialising in the NFT space, and also through Julien’s Auctions – a more traditional auction house. As you can see on the Julien’s site all current bids have already either met or exceeded the estimated selling prices. The auction closes on February 7.

The pieces for sale are three of John Lennon’s Gibson Les Paul guitars, his Afghan jacket from Magical Mystery Tour, the hooded cape worn for the movie Help!, and Paul McCartney’s hand written notes for an arrangement of the song he wrote for Julian called ‘Hey Jude’ (it was originally called ‘Hey Jules’). Each NFT is animated and includes brief audio of Julian discussing the item with that voice-over being incorporated as a part of the NFT.

It should be noted that a portion of the proceeds from this auction will go to Julian’s White Feather Foundation which is active globally on issues relating to education, good health, the preservation of indigenous cultures, the environment and clean water.  

If, like us, you don’t have very deep pockets it might be cheaper to seek out a copy of the lovely book Beatles Memorabilia – The Julian Lennon Collection. Each of these items is detailed there, along with a host of other rare collectables.

If you’d like to hear Julian talking about his collection and why he’s gone down the NFT route, check out this video from the True AF Podcast with Eric Fuller:

Beatles Memorabilia – The Julian Lennon Collection

Had this amazing find yesterday. Just near where I work there’s a discount bookshop that sells lots of remainders. Over the years I’ve picked up quite a few things here (see: The Beatles Second Album;  “The Beatles” book; Beatles Books Abound; etc.)

Yesterday I went in for the first time in weeks and saw about five copies of this sitting on a shelf:

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I’ve seen this book around the traps but never purchased a copy, but at just A$14.99 how could I refuse?

John Lennon’s son Julian has turned his Beatles memorabilia, previously sitting in storage, into a travelling exhibition and a book – all to raise funds for his charity The White Feather Foundation.

There are lots of gold record awards –  all of them from the US and all of them genuine (that is, the actual records that were presented by the RIAA – the Recording Industry of America – to the Beatles). In fact Julian says that his is the only full collection of the American gold discs. How can you tell they are all original? Well the book explains that official presentations are identifiable by the “…white-matte style, so named because of the white linen background used in the   construction of the award. These types of awards were produced from 1963 to 1974 and were strictly limited to the artists only.”

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Interestingly, Julian says in the text that despite being the only person to own a complete set of Beatles US gold records, he doesn’t own any of the Beatles vinyl albums at all. Extraordinary.

There are a couple of great guitars pictured in the book – some of which were given to him by his father and others acquired later (like this one):

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Julian says that nearly everything he now owns he had to buy at auction. When his father passed away in 1980 he didn’t inherit any mementoes or keepsakes. Which is incredibly sad for himself and for his family.

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If you want to have a peek inside just click here, and here’s a video of Julian Lennon talking about the book and exhibition.

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