Pop pin-ups...Beatles poster sells for record £112,000
A RARE poster for a Beatles concert 54 years ago has sold for a world record price of £112,000 ($137,500).
The ad for the Fab Four’s famous return to Shea Stadium in New York in 1966 is now the most expensive gig poster sold at auction.
The 18in by 24in cardboard sheet was one of just a few hundred copies put up in New York promoting the event.
It was taken from a subway station in Brooklyn by a fan. She left it to her brother when she died a few years ago.
Leonard Sommer said he and his late sister were huge Beatles’ fans and among 55,000 at their Shea Stadium concert a year earlier in August 1965.
For that show no posters were needed. But by August 1966 it was felt some US fans had grown weary of Beatlemania. So US promoter Sid Bernstein had the posters made. And the show was a roaring success. Mr Sommer said: “My sister saw a poster announcing the Beatles’ return to Shea Stadium. She grabbed it and it went over her bed.
“It moved with our family to our next house and my sister had it framed. Over the decades we marvelled at the joy it continued to give us.
“My sister has passed and it is clear to me the poster should be in the hands of a serious collector.” He only decided to part with it after seeing another auctioned off for £101,000.
His poster, consigned with Heritage Auctions of Texas, was bought by an anonymous collector.
It is one of the most often forged posters of all time. But this one had a letter of authenticity from Mr Sommer.