The "life-changing contract" which launched the 'Fab Four' on the road to Beatlemania is set to go under the hammer in Britain.
The Beatles' first fully-signed contract with manager Brian Epstein is expected to fetch at least 250,000 pounds at an auction next month. They could never have dreamed that the paper to which John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr added their signatures would one day be worth 250,000 pounds.
Epstein's copy of the contract will be up for grabs at The Fame Bureau's 'It's More than Rock 'n' Roll' sale of rock and pop memorabilia at the Idea Generation Gallery in London on September 4.
"It was a life-changing contract for The Beatles," Ted Owen, the managing director of The Fame Bureau, was quoted as saying by the Mail online.
According to the report, the contract, which gave the manager 25 per cent if they made more than 200 pounds a week, was signed on October 1 1962, shortly after Epstein secured The Beatles' first record deal with EMI.
Two additional signatures are on the paper - Lennon and McCartney's fathers signed their names, as their sons were under 21.
The contract has been put up for sale by an anonymous businessman who collects pop memorabilia. It last came up for auction at Christie's in May 2004, when it fetched 122,850 pounds, the report said.
The Fame Bureau auction will include the Bechstein piano that The Beatles used in recording Hey Jude, with an estimated value of 300,000 to 400,000 pounds.
