The Beatles Autographs

The Liverpool years, to 1962

Autograph book pages and promotional material signed before the fame, when the four of them wrote their names out properly because nobody was in a hurry. The scarcest and most desirable era, and the one where the line-up question has to be settled first.

The touring years, 1963 to 1966

The bulk of the surviving material: sleeves, programmes, hotel notepaper, scraps handed over at stage doors and airports. Also the era of heaviest substitute signing, because the demand on their time was at its most absurd.

The studio years, 1967 to 1970

Touring had stopped, so the four were rarely in one room with a fan and a pen. Full sets from this period are correspondingly scarce, and a signed sleeve of the album everyone knows is a landmark item.

Handwritten material

Lyrics, notes and drawings. Lennon in particular drew constantly, and a doodle in his hand can be worth considerably more than his signature.

Contracts and business paper

Signed in the ordinary course of work rather than for a fan, dated and filed. Dry to look at and unusually strong evidentially.

Solo-era signatures

Post-1970, and a different market. Four solo signatures assembled onto one item is not a Beatles autograph, and should never be priced as one.

Each of the four has a hand that changed over the decade, and the changes are documented well enough to date a set within a couple of years. A set where one member's signature is from the wrong period is a set that was assembled, not signed.

Completeness is the engine of value in this category. Each additional genuine signature does not add to the piece; it multiplies the difficulty of producing it, and therefore multiplies what it is worth. That is also why forgers concentrate here — the reward for faking the fourth signature is far larger than the reward for faking the first.

• Complete sets in one ink, on one object, from a single occasion.
• Anything from before the end of 1962, when the line-up and the level of fame were both still changing.
• Studio-period sets, when the four were no longer in public together.
• Handwritten lyrics, working drafts and drawings.
• Sets on the record they are actually known for, rather than on a plain sheet of paper.

Beatles demand is international, institutional and generational all at once, and it has been strong continuously for longer than most collecting categories have existed. Two of the four have died, which fixed supply at a known point and concentrated attention on what already exists.

Demand also follows the object as much as the signatures. A complete set on the famous album outsells the same set on an ordinary sheet by a wide margin, even though the sheet may be rarer. Collectors are buying a thing they recognise, signed, rather than four signatures with a thing attached.

Road-crew signing

Members of the touring organisation signed for the band, regularly and competently, throughout the touring years. Period paper, period ink, wrong hands. The largest category of not-quite-right Beatles material.

Fan-club office signing

Material sent out in response to fan-club correspondence was signed at the office. Enormous volume, and much of it now circulating in good faith as genuine.

The one-pen set

Four signatures, one ink flow, one slope, one rhythm. The commonest outright forgery in the category and the most reliably detectable.

Assembled sets

Four genuine signatures from four different occasions, brought together on one item and sold as a single signing. Every signature real, the piece misrepresented.

Solo sold as band

Later signatures from all four, described as a Beatles set. The dates give it away if you know what each hand looked like when.

Completeness

Four beats three by far more than a third. A missing member is not a discount, it is a different category of object.

The object signed

The album everyone knows, a period programme, a piece of hotel paper from a documented night — over a blank card.

Era

Early and late are both scarce for different reasons; the middle touring years are where the volume sits.

Condition and ink

Sixties ballpoint on paper fades and offsets. Strong, unfaded, unrestored examples carry a real premium.

Inscription

A dedication generally adds here, because it anchors the piece to an occasion and a person — the opposite of how inscriptions usually behave.

If you are working out what something you already own is worth rather than what to pay, the firm's piece on the factors that set a price is the place to start.