Last week, we asked the question 'When it comes to collectibles, is John Lennon bigger than The Beatles?' comparing the Imagine singer's memorabilia auction sales with those of the Fab Four.
Needless to say, collectors are fascinated with all aspects of Lennon's life. For instance, extra-Beatles Lennon memorabilia items currently for sale on the markets include pencil sketches drawn while he was still a student at Liverpool Art School - long before the hits Love Me Do or Please Please Me were even written.
Alternatively, an autograph by the young McCartney is for sale, written from his boyhood home to a friend named Liz while recording The Beatles' debut LP, Please Please Me. "Well, 'Taste of Honey' is on the LP... and quite a few of our own compositions. (cough cough)," he writes.
Lennon memorabilia items like these sketches drawn while at Liverpool
Art College show that collectors remained enthralled with all aspects
of the ex-Beatle’s life (You can find out more here)
Meanwhile, the question of whether Lennon can outsell The Beatles will again be put to the test at Bonhams' Pioneers of Popular Culture sale, which takes place on August 15. The auction will be held at the Goodwood Vintage Festival, celebrating all that is cool and iconic from the period 1940-1990.
We've already reported on the sale's main highlight: a Challen upright piano from London's famous Abbey Road studios, played by The Beatles (as well as Pink Floyd) on a number of their hits, including Tomorrow Never Knows and Paperback Writer.
Valued at an already-impressive £150,000, the piano could sell for significantly more if it captures the imaginations of bidders on the day of the sale.
Could this vintage piano from Abbey Road Studios become another
million-dollar selling piece of Lennon memorabilia? (Our report is here)
In comparison, other recent high profile John Lennon auctions saw his lyrics from the song A Day In The Life bring $1.2m at Sotheby's, in June, and the sale of his Rolls Royce Phantom V car for an amazing $2,230,000 back in 1985 - still the World Record price for a Lennon collectible.
But particularly exciting about Bonhams' sale are the opportunities for collectors to journey back into the Fab Four's earlier days, when they performed at Liverpool's Cavern Club a whopping 292 times from 1961-62.
This fact is confirmed by a commemorative section of the stage from the Cavern Club - often called ''The Birthplace Of The Beatles'' - dated to the 1950s-60s. The 3¾ x 4½ x 1 inches section of the stage will appear in Bonhams' auction estimated at £450-550 (€530-650).
 Salvaged from the depths: from Liverpool's Cavern Club, the recording/ |
Elsewhere, if you don't have a spare £150,000 to spend on a vintage piano, an autographed third mono pressing of The Beatles' 1963 debut LP, Please Please Me - alluded to by Paul McCartney in his letter to Liz - will appear in the sale valued at £5,000-7,000 (€5,900-8,300).
And if that's not enough, collectors and investors will also be able to get their hands on recording and PA equipment from the Cavern Club - specifically a vintage Reslosound microphone and two Ferrograph Model 3A/N reel-to-reel tape recorder, with an original receipt issued by the Cavern.
The recording equipment is estimated at £800-1,200 (€940-1,400) and, along with such items as the signed Please Please Me LP, offer authentic pieces of rock 'n' roll history and also appreciable investments to savvy collectors.
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