1974 John Lennon & Harry Nilsson Signatures
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GUEST:
Well, we had a good family friend that is in the music business, and he was friends with Harry Nilsson, who is one of the autographs. And evidently, John Lennon was ill, and that family friend told the producer to take him over to see my father-in-law, who was a physician. And he went, and I guess as a token of appreciation, he signed this, an autograph, for my husband and his two sisters. They have one also.
APPRAISER:
Very cool. I like this piece: one, because obviously John Lennon signed it, which is really cool; Harry Nilsson signed it, which is cool. What I like even beyond that is the combination of the two of them, because they had a legendary friendship that goes back to the late '60s, actually. The Beatles heard some of Harry Nilsson's demos, and when the press asked them who their favorite artists were, who their favorite American bands were, they kept promoting Harry Nilsson. They kept saying, "Harry Nilsson." And Paul McCartney said, "Who's your favorite band?" "Harry Nilsson." So they were big fans of his because they thought he was really talented. Well, then you fast-forward all these years later, and they kind of reconnected in Los Angeles around 1973, 1974, when John Lennon was on the Lost Weekend and he was doing a lot of partying out in LA, and Harry Nilsson was invited to a party at George Harrison's house, so he was really good friends... he was very good friends with Ringo Starr. But what I like even more than
that on top of it is because it's on this letterhead...
GUEST:
Studio letterhead.
APPRAISER:
It's the Record Plant, and it's Record Plant Studios in New York City. So we know a little bit about their friendship, we know all of this information about that. And then when you put it on this paper, then I know even more specifically, I can start to narrow things down as to what was going on when they signed this. And they collaborated. John Lennon decided they were partying way too much in Los Angeles. They were famously thrown out of the Troubadour Club in L.A. for heckling the Smothers Brothers the night that Harry Nilsson introduced John Lennon to Brandy Alexanders.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
So they were up to a lot of hijinks. They weren't getting any work done in L.A. And John said, "I want to produce an album for you," so they started working on an album called Pussycats.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And they ended up moving the production to New York. So we now know that this is May of 1974 because they were working in the studio at the Record Plant in New York in May of 1974. Another cool thing, there are pictures of them in that studio in New York. It was widely covered.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And the sessions, actually, there are so many other things about that recording session and that album when they produced it. Because Ringo Starr was a really good friend, he came and sat in, Paul McCartney sat in on some of the sessions in Los Angeles, Stevie Wonder sat in on the sessions. So there are a lot of people that collaborated on this album. And they say that this album that they were working on together was the last time John Lennon and Paul McCartney were ever together in the studio. So putting all of that together, it kind of... the simple signatures on a piece of paper tells a much bigger story for us. And the same is true of the value. So the other thing I can start to build from this in the value, a Harry Nilsson signature is probably worth $200 to $300. A John Lennon signature on a piece of paper is probably worth about $2,000. A piece of Record Plant stationery isn't really worth anything. But when you combine it all together, it tells a full story, and you have the little doodle in John Lennon's... his famous little caricature doodle. So putting that together, I think at auction, it would probably be closer to $4,000 to $6,000.
GUEST:
Awesome, that's wonderful. Oh, wow. Very cool.
APPRAISER:
There's two more out there, because you said your husband's sisters each have one.
GUEST:
Right. And he signed some albums also.
APPRAISER:
Okay, who has the albums?
GUEST:
His sisters, I believe. I don't know if my husband has one or not. We still have to look.
APPRAISER:
I think I'd probably find out.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Because a John Lennon signature on a piece of paper is worth $2,000; a John Lennon signature on an album is worth multiples of that. This might be the tip of the iceberg for you.
GUEST:
Awesome. Thank you so much.
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