Rare Beatles photographs to delight collectors

To mark the 50^th anniversary of the Beatles arrival in Adelaide for the first leg of their Australian tour, from noon on Thursday June 5 Leonard Joel will auction a remarkable collection of 50 photographs of the band and the crowd who turned out to meet them.

An estimated 300,000 people (about one-third of the city’s population) lined the route from Adelaide airport to the city to catch a glimpse of the Beatles when their plane touched down on June 12, 1964.

Part of a bigger world tour, it was the only time the Beatles ever came to Australia.

The mostly unpublished black and white images belonged to English collector and dealer Mark Hayward and will be sold individually with copyright, which means successful buyers will purchase both the print and the negative.

These photographs are particularly memorable because they do not include drummer Ringo Starr, who was sick and did not join the tour until two days after it began.

Instead, session drummer Jimmy Nicol (who was familiar with the Beatles songs) filled in as substitute and is featured in the photographs. 

The images show the Beatles arriving in Adelaide, waving to the crowd and playing in four performances during their two-day visit to the city.

Other auction memorabilia items include Beatles autographs, Rolling Stones tickets from a 1973 concert at Kooyong, Led Zepplin signed albums and two costumes from the X men movies.

One of these is Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine costume – donated to charity and to be sold for the Fight Cancer Foundation. The other is the costume Haile Berry wore in Storm.