An original 1967 Parlophone Records issue Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album with signatures of all four Beatles next to their respective images was expected to sell for about $30,000, but fetched a record-breaking $290,500 in an auction on Saturday.
According to Billboard, the highest price paid for a Beatles album prior to Saturday’s sale was $150,000 for a signed copy of Meet the Beatles.
The BBC quotes Beatles expert Perry Cox, who said before the sale: “With my being thoroughly immersed in Beatles collectibles for over 30 years, it takes something extraordinarily special to excite me, but I consider this to be one of the top two items of Beatles memorabilia I’ve ever seen—the other being a signed copy of Meet The Beatles.”
The auction was conducted through Texas-based Heritage Auctions. The website auctioned off $1,011,748 in music and entertainment memorabilia on Saturday, but the Beatles album went for the highest price by far.
The next highest priced sale was $68,500 for a Marlon Brando Golden Globe Award. The award was for best dramatic performance in 1954 for his role in “On the Waterfront.”
