Beatles’ Management Contract Heads to Auction
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Brian Epstein’s copy of his management contract with the Beatles, a pact that proved to be worth millions, is being offered for sale in London next month.
The four-page document, signed October 1, 1962, by John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Richard Starkey — Ringo Starr’s real name — carries an estimated price of $480,000. The Fame Bureau auction house said Tuesday it had scheduled the sale for September 4 at the Idea Generation Gallery.
The contract, also signed by Harold Hargreaves Harrison and James McCartney on behalf of their underage sons, gave Epstein a 25% cut of the band’s earnings, provided they made more than $400 each week.
The contract was offered for sale by a northern England businessman and Beatles collector who has asked to remain anonymous.
The contract marked the moment when all the pieces were in place for a global outbreak of Beatlemania.
