The original master tape of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr performing at the Star Club in Hamburg in 1962 have been discovered from a storage and show the group just before they became famous. The tapes were lost since 1977, reported Daily Mirror.
The unedited recordings cover 300 minutes of The Beatles performing 33 songs, which were mostly cover tracks.
The tape was originally the property of Ted Taylor of the Liverpudlian band Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes which performed with the Beatles in Hamburg in December 1962.
Taylor gave the tape to a recording engineer but they were lost until 1973 when he found them on the floor of an abandoned studio formerly used by the engineer.
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Music company Lingasong bought them and teamed up with music producer Larry Grossberg to convert them from mono to stereo sound.
A 26 song double album 'The Beatles; 'Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962' was produced from them and released in 1977 against the wishes of the Beatles who tried to block it.
Grossberg kept the master tape and recently re-discovered it in storage after forgetting he had it.
"As far as Beatles' fans and collectors go, these tapes are pure gold. They are the most significant and most important set of tapes ever to come up for auction because they represent a time when the Beatles were unknown and before they became famous," Owen said.
"Larry Grossberg didn't realise he had the master recordings. He was going through a lot of his old tapes and he found these tapes and played them and realised they were the original masters. They had just been lying around one of his studios for years and years since 1977.