A series of 65 unpublished colour photographs of The Beatles during their 1964 sell-out US tour are to be auctioned.
The slides will go under the hammer at Omega Auctions in Stockport, Cheshire on March 22, which marks 50 years since the band released their debut LP Please Please Me, the BBC reports. They will be sold along with the copyright and are expected to fetch between £10,000 and £15,000.
The photographs were taken by physicist Dr Robert Beck. The inventor and researcher died in 2002 and left a large archive of photographs and slides in his Hollywood home. Most colour photographs of the band in the US did not appear until later in 1965.
Dr Beck’s slides include pictures of George Harrison with his red Rickenbacker guitar, which appeared in the film A Hard Day’s Night as well as close-up portraits of the band at the Las Vegas Sahara Hotel press conference, the Las Vegas Convention Centre gig, plus images of a party at the Beverly Hills mansion of the then president of Capitol Records, Alan Livingston.
Last November, a collage by artist Sir Peter Blake used for the insert in The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band fetched more than £50,000 at auction.