The Fab Four Carried That Weight in Heritage’s $1.185 Million Beatles Event

A portfolio from Abbey Road’s cover shoot and John Lennon’s copy of the White Album led the Feb. 24 memorabilia auction DOWNLOAD DIGITAL PRESS KIT DALLAS, Texas (Feb. 28, 2024) — Among serious collectors, the popularity of the Fab Four shows no signs of waning as Heritage brought in $1.185 million for a tight Beatles auction that took place on Feb. 24. The auction – The Beatles "Coming to America" 60th Anniversary Music Memorabilia Signature® Auction – was rich in music and memorabilia that spanned the band's career and bookended an extraordinary trajectory –starting with an encounter on their first flight to America in 1964 (en route to Ed Sullivan) all the way to 1975 and their last known sign-off on a record contract (the last time their signatures are in one place) – as well as a copy of the White Album once owned by John Lennon and an original set of seven chromogenic color prints of the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover photo session. These four top lots come in at more than $100K each. "We were very pleased to celebrate this category's kickoff auction for 2024, the 60th anniversary of the Beatles coming to America – with another in April, July, and November," says Garry Shrum, Heritage's Director of Entertainment & Music Memorabilia. "We had lots of bidders involved from the beginning. All sold well, from rare vinyl to fabulous autographs to '60s memorabilia and original awards." Tied as the top seller in the event was a true rarity among rarities: Abbey Road, the album, is for many an aficionado the true desert-island keeper amongst the Beatles' albums, and for the album's cover shoot the bandmates took a casual stroll across the road along what England calls a "zebra crossing." The extraordinary portfolio of seven color photographs by Iain MacMillen came from that momentous photo shoot and brought $162,500 on Saturday. The photos of course show the Fab Four at the most storied location of the band's history — Paul sans shoes — and were assembled as a very limited edition. "While the secondary market shows several single prints from the portfolio, sales of complete sets are virtually unknown — much less unopened in original wrapping," says Shrum. Tied for that top-selling spot at $162,500 was a copy of the White Album (that other desert-island Beatles fave) once owned by John Lennon. Most of the low-numbered copies of the White Album were owned by people with personal connections to the band. Lennon owned this copy and gifted it to Les Anthony, who was at the time of the album's release Lennon's personal chauffeur and bodyguard. The third top-selling lot was a also a record-breaker: A graded copy of the ever-notorious 1966 "butcher cover" (A.K.A. Yesterday and Today) sold for $112,500, which is highest price paid for a slabbed and graded variation of the album; this sealed Mono "First State" was slabbed and graded 9.0 and came with a copy of the recall letter from Ron Tepper. The fourth highest-priced seller in the auction – a menu heavy with signatures along with some personal photos – came in at a cool $100,000 and was the event's charmer with a fabulous Beatles backstory: In 1964, American teenager Carol Hollenshead's father made regular business trips to England and had already brought home word of an up-and-coming act named the Beatles, as well as a copy of the LP Meet the Beatles. Carol was immediately smitten with the music ("It was just.. better!"), and on a subsequent flight – the Feb. 7 Pan Am flight 101 from London to New York – her dad found himself in first class with the obliging lads. They were en route to their Stateside debut; in two days they would go on Ed Sullivan's TV show in New York, and two days after that play the oversold Washington Coliseum in D.C. During the flight, Carol's dad snapped photos of the Beatles along with fellow fliers Phil Spector, Brian Epstein and Cynthia Lennon. The band and its small entourage signed the in-flight menu for him. While Carol has been a lifetime Beatles fan, she didn't discover the menu and photos until last December, when, during a move, she found her father's long-lost trove. For more backstory on this lot and complete results on all lots in the event, please visit HA.com/7321. Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the United States, and the world's largest collectibles auctioneer. Heritage maintains offices in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. Heritage also enjoys the highest Online traffic and dollar volume of any auction house on earth (source: SimilarWeb and Hiscox Report). The Internet's most popular auction-house website, HA.com, has more than 1,750,000 registered bidder-members and searchable free archives of 6,000,000 past auction records with prices realized, descriptions and enlargeable photos. Reproduction rights routinely granted to media for photo credit. For breaking stories, follow us: HA.com/Facebook and HA.com/Twitter . Link to this release or view prior press releases . Hi-Res images available: Christina Rees, Public Relations Specialist 214-409-1341 or Christina Rees@HA.com