Signed HARD DAY’S NIGHT Expected To Bring High Price
WHEN a junior reporter on the East Anglian Daily Times attended a press conference before The Beatles played a show in Ipswich, UK back in 1964 the clued-up writer got the Fab Four to sign a copy of one of their best-known albums. Now, 42 years on, the autographed copy of A Hard Day’s Night is expected to fetch up to £15,000 when it goes under the hammer later this month. If it reaches that price tag, it would be worth 17 times more than the £850 fee the band received for their performance at the Gaumont Cinema (now the Regent Theatre) in 1964.
Pop memorabilia experts at Christie’s in London, where it will be auctioned next Thursday, say it is rare to find a fully-signed copy of the Beatles’ third album and expect the record to sell for between £10,000 and £15,000.
The EADT reporter, whose identity remains a mystery, was invited to attend the press conference before the concert on October 31. He had bought the LP earlier that day and was able to get all four members – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – to sign the record in different coloured ballpoint pens. David Kindred, who was photographer for the EADT at the gig, said: “The day they [the Beatles] came was pretty hectic. It was the group’s second visit to Ipswich and they were literally on the crest of a wave. On the afternoon of the show there was a meeting for the press and I guess that’s when the reporter in question must have taken the record to be signed, although I can’t remember who it was. The concert itself was a sell out several weeks before. You couldn’t actually hear much of the Beatles really because the amplification equipment was not that powerful and there was just a continuous scream throughout the show.
