Beatles auction finds are fab
The day fan Susan bagged The Beatles' signatures. Tony Henderson reports
For Beatles fan Susan Hutchinson, making her way to the concert at Newcastle City Hall where the group were appearing was excitement enough.
But it was about to be ramped up even further when she bumped into The Beatles as they walked around the venue on Saturday, March 23, in 1963.
She recalls: “I was walking down City Road with a friend and we saw the four Beatles walking around the [City Hall]. I produced my ticket for the show, and they gladly signed the back of it as we were standing in the street.
“I remember Paul McCartney being the most beautiful man I had ever seen.”
The signed ticket, for the Tommy Roe–Chris Montez Show, was discovered at an Anderson & Garland auctioneers valuation event in Hexham.
It will be sold at Anderson & Garland’s Newcastle music sale on June 25, accompanied by a period autograph album featuring other notable signatures including Roy Orbison, Bruce Welch, Jet Harris, and Brian Poole. Estimate: £3,000–£5,000.
The Beatles would return to Newcastle on two more occasions in 1963 - in June with Roy Orbison and in November for their own ‘Beatles Show’. It was during the June trip that McCartney and Lennon are said to have written She Loves You at The Turks Head Hotel on Grey Street.
A ticket stub from the November 23 show, which started at 8.40pm and cost eight shillings and sixpence, is part of the sale, estimated at £80–£120.
Another Beatles item is a letter from the group’s manager Brian Epstein’s NEMS Enterprises company to a fan called Ilona, from Longbenton.
She had written to the NEMS office enclosing a newspaper snippet which quoted a report from the United States that Paul McCartney had secretly married his girlfriend Jane Asher.
The reply to Ilona stated that “Paul is not married to Jane Asher nor anyone else” and “herewith your sheet of paper duly autographed” (signed on behalf of The Beatles), plus a black and white postcard of the group.
The City Hall also figures in another sale item - a set of Buddy Holly and The Crickets signatures, on a pink autograph book paper leaf.
The autographs were obtained at Newcastle City Hall on March 8, 1958, less than a year before Buddy died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959.
The auction also offers a signed guitar from Local Hero, Mark Knopfler. The Fender USA Signature Series Stratocaster, designed by Knopfler himself, bears his signature in black felt tip on the white scratch plate.
It comes complete in a Fender case with tags, strap, lead, and other associated items.
The instrument was donated by Knopfler personally as an auction prize for the Variety Club Northern Region’s Tribute To Mark Knopfler held in Newcastle on October 19, 2006.
It comes with a copy of the programme of events and a Variety Club memo regarding the occasion. The guitar is estimated to sell for between £1,000 and £2,000.