An original set of waxwork heads of The Beatles, which was used on the band’s album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, has been found and will be put up for sale this month, an auction house said on Thursday.
The heads were unearthed in a store room at Madame Tussaud’s waxwork museum in London earlier in the year after being presumed missing for nearly four decades.
Auction house Cooper Owen said they should fetch up to £80 000
(about R921 000) in the sale at Madame Tussaud’s on October 27.
Only the original heads of band members John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr have been discovered. But the waxwork house will use another vintage head of Paul McCartney to complete the set.
Cooper Owen said enthusiasm for the Beatles is still huge, noting that Lennon’s handwritten manuscript for the song All You Need Is Love fetched almost £700 000 *R8-million) at another auction of Beatles memorabilia in July.
”There will be an absolutely massive demand for this,” a spokesperson for the auctioneer said, referring to the iconic heads.
”Someone is going to get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said.
Other props used on the cover of the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, released in 1967, will also be up for grabs, namely a portrait bust of actress Diana Dors and a Shirley Temple doll wearing a top that bears the words: ”Welcome the Rolling Stones.”
The album cover was designed by artist Peter Blake, who came up with the concept of a crowd of celebrities standing behind the band.
Most of the figures, which include Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and Laurel and Hardy, were cardboard cut-outs.
The Beatles waxworks, wearing black suits, were placed to the left of the real-life band.
The October sale will also include trinkets from other musical legends, such as the Rolling Stones’ first-ever recording contract. — Sapa-AFP