Money can buy you early Beatles stage at New York auction

(Reuters) – The wooden stage of the small Liverpool venue where the Beatles performed before they rocketed to fame is going up for auction, along with Paul McCartney’s hastily scribbled notes for a studio recording of the hit song “Hey Jude.”

The stage and the lyrics are among 300 items of Beatles memorabilia being sold in New York on April 10, including an annotated shooting script of the band’s 1967 “Hello, Goodbye” music video and an ashtray used by Ringo Starr at the Abbey Road recording studios in London, Julien’s Auctions said on Friday.

The stage was removed from Lathom Hall in the Beatles’ British home town of Liverpool, where the band gave its first advertised performance in May 1960 as the Silver Beatles. As the Beatles, but without Starr on drums, the band played there 10 more times until February 1961 – more than a year before the release of debut single, “Love Me Do.”

It is expected to sell for $10,000 to $20,000.

“The stage is a unique piece to come to market,” said Jason Watkins, music specialist at Julien’s Auctions. “There’s not a ton of market history for something quite like this. So it’ll be interesting to see where the price goes.”

A sheet of paper with partial “Hey Jude” lyrics, written by McCartney for a recording session in 1968, has an asking price of up to $180,000.

“The ‘Hey Jude’ lyrics are a very rare, valuable special piece. It’s obviously a very iconic song that everyone’s familiar with. These handwritten lyrics were used in the studio as a guide when they were recording it,” said Watkins.

Other highlights include John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono’s drawing of Bagism, a term the couple created to satirize stereotyping, that was featured in their 1969 “Bed Peace” documentary, which has a pre-auction estimate of $80,000 to $100,000.

The auction will take place online and at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, New York.

(Reporting by Jane Ross and Jill Serjeant; Editing by Christopher Cushing)