Beatles for sale as autograph album up for auction

A collection of autographs signed by all four Beatles is set to go to auction - although its owner admits the signatures the Fab Four also added to her arm are long gone, after her dad forced her to wash them off.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr signed the book for "Beatle-obsessed" Elizabeth Salt, now 79, after a gig in Portsmouth in 1963.

Salt, who was a teenager at the time, said she was "heartbroken" when her father put down his foot over the second set.

The autograph book, which has also been signed by Cliff Richard and the Rolling Stones, will go under the hammer at Richard Winterton Auctioneers at The Lichfield Auction Centre in Staffordshire on 2 February.

Salt, from Lichfield, encountered the Beatles numerous times in the 1960s, as Beatlemania swept the UK.

The Beatles played the Savoy Ballroom in Portsmouth, on 7 April 1963, a date Salt and her friends were not going to miss.

"We were sat around the stage when George Harrison broke his guitar string and I picked it up," she explained.

"Afterwards they went into a room and we all just piled in. That's when I got their autographs on my left arm – I just held it out asking them to sign and they did."

The album also includes a complete set of the Rolling Stones' signatures including Brian Jones, and signatures from other 60s stars Adam Faith, Del Shannon, Bobby Vee and Billy Fury.

Rob French, from Richard Winterton Auctioneers, said: "This is one of the finest 1960s autograph books I've had the pleasure of cataloguing.

"What makes this book so special is the fact that it contains the signatures of all The Beatles and the Rolling Stones plus more from some of the biggest names in pop music from the 1960s."

The autograph album was estimated to fetch between £3,000 and £4,000.

Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.