Lady Gaga was not the first superstar to rock raw meat.
The Fab Four’s “Yesterday and Today” album, often referred to by musicologists as the “rarest Beatles record in the world,” features the band in white coats covered in cuts of beef and decapitated baby dolls.
John Lennon’s personal copy of this “Butcher Edition,” which was yanked from distribution in 1966, hits the auction block Thursday at The Beatles Story Museum in Liverpool.
Julien’s Auctions has announced the disc is expected to fetch bids between $160,000 and $180,000.
This copy is signed by Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and is believed to be the only original edition bearing three Beatles signatures.
“There is no Beatles album in the world that compares with this one in terms of both rarity and value,” Beatles expert Gary Hein tells Caters News. “This important, world-class pop culture piece would add significantly to any Beatles collector, art, pop culture or record collector’s collection.”
The record reportedly adorned a wall in Lennon’s NYC apartment. He later gifted it to renowned Beatles memorabilia collector Dave Morrell, with the handwritten inscription, “To Dave, from John Lennon, Dec 7th 1971.”
Other highlights in the “Music Icons: The Beatles in Liverpool” auction include an autographed baseball given to San Francisco Giants manager Mike Murphy, with bids estimated to hit the $80,000 to $100,000 range. Lennon’s signed guitar strap is predicted to snag from $20,000 to $30,000.