Fully Signed Sgt. Pepper LP Cover

The album that ended the touring years

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the Beatles' eighth studio album, made after the band gave up touring, and was recorded from December 6, 1966, to April 21, 1967, at EMI's Abbey Road studios and Regent Sound in London with producer George Martin. The band spent about 700 hours on it, more than 30 times the time spent on their first album, and the final cost came to about £25,000.

It came out on Parlophone in Britain on May 26, 1967, and on Capitol in the United States on June 2. It was the first Beatles album with the same track listing on both sides of the Atlantic, and it spent 27 weeks at No. 1 in Britain and 15 weeks at No. 1 in the U.S.

Mono matters to collectors of this record. Both stereo and mono mixes were made, but the Beatles concentrated on the mono. Engineer Geoff Emerick recalled spending three weeks on the mono mixes and perhaps three days on the stereo, which the band largely left to Martin and Emerick. This signed copy is a British mono pressing.

The most famous sleeve in pop

Pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth designed the cover, art-directed by Robert Fraser and photographed by Michael Cooper. The front shows the Beatles in day-glo satin military-style uniforms behind a bass drum painted with the album title, surrounded by life-size cardboard cutouts of famous people and wax figures of their own Beatlemania-era selves borrowed from Madame Tussauds. EMI refused Lennon's requests for Adolf Hitler and Jesus and Harrison's for Mahatma Gandhi. The cover art cost nearly £3,000, at a time when a typical album cover cost around £50.

The same March 30, 1967, photo session produced the inside gatefold, a close portrait of the four Beatles in their bright uniforms. McCartney said they were trying to say 'I love you' through the camera. That inner spread is where the four signed this copy, each next to his own image.

It was also the first rock LP with its lyrics printed in full on the back cover, and it came with a sheet of cardboard cutouts, including a moustache, sergeant stripes and badges. At the 1968 Grammy Awards it won four awards, including Album of the Year, a first for a rock record, and Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts.

From $15,000 to a record

The copy was offered in an entertainment and music memorabilia auction in Dallas in late March 2013, where it was the centerpiece of the sale. The seller was not named. A letter of authenticity stated that the autographs were obtained in 1967, the year the album came out.

It was estimated at $30,000 and opened at $15,000, but the bidding took off before the sale even started; reports put the pre-auction bids at over $110,000 a week ahead, or over $120,000. The auction's consignment director said the bidding had 'taken on a life of its own,' driven by the quality of the autographs. Beatles expert Perry Cox called it one of the top two items of Beatles memorabilia he had ever seen.

On Saturday, March 30, 2013, two bidders, one on the phone and one online, pushed it to $290,500. The winner was a collector from the U.S. Midwest who was not identified. The price nearly doubled the previous record for a signed Beatles album, $150,000 paid privately for a signed copy of the 1964 album Meet the Beatles!

Why four signatures matter

The auction's experts put the price down to the quality of the autographs. This copy combines all four signatures with a 1967 signing date, signatures placed on the gatefold beside each man's picture, the original British mono pressing and a cover in mint condition.

The sale date carried a small coincidence: it fell 46 years to the day after Michael Cooper's photo session for the cover and gatefold.

The Beatles' Mona Lisa

Sgt. Pepper had sold more than 32 million copies worldwide by 2011, was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2003 and has topped many best-album polls. Writers have called its sleeve one of the best-known works of pop art and the most famous album cover of all time; one critic called the album itself the Beatles' Mona Lisa.

A fully signed copy brings together the record, the cover and the four people who made it. In 2013 that combination set a record for any signed Beatles album.

The numbers

Recorded

December 6, 1966 to April 21, 1967, Abbey Road and Regent Sound, London

Released

May 26, 1967 (U.K., Parlophone); June 2, 1967 (U.S., Capitol)

Charts

27 weeks at No. 1 in the U.K.; 15 weeks at No. 1 in the U.S.

Grammys

4 wins (1968), including Album of the Year and Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts

Sales

Over 32 million copies worldwide as of 2011

Cover cost

Nearly £3,000, against a typical £50

Timeline

1. Dec 6, 1966

   Recording begins on the album at Abbey Road.

2. Mar 30, 1967

   Michael Cooper photographs the cover, back cover and inside gatefold.

3. Apr 21, 1967

   Recording ends.

4. May 26, 1967

   The album is released in Britain on Parlophone.

5. Jun 2, 1967

   The album is released in the United States on Capitol.

6. 1967

   All four Beatles sign this copy on the inside gatefold, according to its letter of authenticity.

7. Mar 1968

   The album wins four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Album Cover.

8. 2003

   The album is added to the National Recording Registry.

9. Mar 30, 2013

   The signed copy sells at auction in Dallas for $290,500, a record for a signed Beatles album.

The world in 1967

• Jan 15, 1967

  The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in Super Bowl I.

• Jan 27, 1967

  Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee die in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire.

• Jun 12, 1967

  The Supreme Court strikes down bans on interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia.

• Jun 16, 1967

  The Monterey Pop Festival opens in California.

• Jul 23, 1967

  The Detroit riot begins; 43 people are killed.

• Aug 30, 1967

  Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Supreme Court justice.

• Nov 9, 1967

  The first issue of Rolling Stone is published in San Francisco.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Fully Signed Sgt. Pepper LP Cover is number 95 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (97 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The signed copy sold 46 years to the day after the photo shoot that produced its cover and gatefold.
• EMI vetoed Hitler, Jesus and Gandhi from the cover crowd.
• Ringo Starr was the only Beatle who suggested no one for the collage.
• Engineer Geoff Emerick said the band spent three weeks on the mono mixes and maybe three days on the stereo.
• McCartney's sleeve badge in the gatefold photo reads 'O.P.P.' for Ontario Provincial Police.
• The final price was nearly 10 times the $30,000 estimate.