The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper drum sells for over $1m
World’s most expensive one-man-band?
When Christie's first announced its rock and pop memorabilia auction for July, it gave the star attraction (the drumskin used on the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) a 'conservative' £100,000 - £150,000 estimate. Times that by four and you'll get close to the eventual selling price: a staggering £541,250 ($1.07m).
In fact, all the big-draw items outsold their estimates. John Lennon's handwritten Give Peace A Chance lyrics and sunglasses sold for £421,240 and £39,650 respectively and Pete Townshend's Gibson SG Special went for £32,450.
Another batch of lost Jimi Hendrix recordings took £48,050, while his stripy flared trousers and 1966 Marshall amp fetched £20,000 and £25,000 on the nose.
Buyers details have not been released, but we're hoping to see a well-dressed one-man-band singing Give Peace A Chance on the doorstep of his re-mortgaged mansion very soon.
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Tom Porter worked on MusicRadar from its mid-2007 launch date to 2011, covering a range of music and music making topics, across features, gear news, reviews, interviews and more. A regular NAMM-goer back in the day, Tom now resides permanently in Los Angeles, where he's doing rather well at the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).