1963 Beatles Autographs

Appraised on: August 6, 2011

Appraised in: Atlanta, Georgia

Appraised by: Kathleen Guzman

Category: Collectibles

Episode Info: Atlanta, Hour 2 (#1614)

Originally Aired: April 23, 2012

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (18:20)

APPRAISER: So where were you August in 1963?

GUEST: My family was in Bournemouth, England, and we were lucky enough to be staying in the same hotel as the Beatles. I was five years old at the time, and they thought I was cute and had a nice Canadian accent, so they were always joking and laughing and teasing me. But we didn't know who they were, because they weren't famous in North America yet. We just thought they were nice guys. We did know they were famous in Europe because the hotel was always mobbed. There was fans out front all the time. But we certainly didn't know they would become the phenomenon that they did. So the morning we were leaving, at breakfast, I went over and asked them for their autograph. Ringo wouldn't give me his autograph unless I gave him a kiss.

APPRAISER: Oh, my gosh.

GUEST: But unfortunately, Paul McCartney was not there that morning. So I only have three out of the four.

APPRAISER: Well, that's a pretty good story. And we can see we have a great John Lennon autograph here, really strong and bold, this wonderful George Harrison, and then the Ringo has these two little kisses after it. So he gave you some kisses back, which is really nice. We have these signatures, but who wrote "The Beatles" on this?

GUEST: That was my mother that wrote that. And you can see in the corner where she had to make sure the pen worked.

APPRAISER: What's so wonderful about Beatles signatures is the story. When you get this signed directly, you should put that story down on paper and put it on the back.

GUEST: Oh, okay.

APPRAISER: Because there are so many Beatles signatures that are wrong.

GUEST: We had a fire in our home, and it actually went through the fire and survived. We lost almost everything, so it was very lucky that that survived.

APPRAISER: In an auction setting, we would put a value on this of $3,000 to $5,000.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

APPRAISER: There has been a group with all four signatures from this year that sold for over $10,000.