There is something to frighten the bourgeois. Yet this picture is printed in 750,000 copies for the cover of their new album Yesterday and Today edited in the United States. Rightly feeling a risk of scandal Capitol Records calls back the copies already delivered to retailers and covers all the sleeves with a good picture devoid of any English humor.
The copies that escaped this modern autodafe are a joy for the collectors. A still sealed unit was sold for $ 39K including premium by Heritage on April 14, 2006.
There was of course no reason to recover a prototype of the front side that had been presented to John Lennon. John enjoyed that irreverent image that he had hung on the wall in his apartment.
In 1971 John obtained an illegal recording of the group made by a teenager. Delighted with this operation he inscribes the prototype to his fan in a bubble above his own head. The blank back is illustrated with a drawing made by John showing with his usual nervous line a man with his shovel and dog. Later the young man gets the autograph signatures of Paul and Ringo.
This very nice artefact from The Beatles is estimated $ 200K for sale by Heritage in Dallas on November 11, lot 89241. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
SOLD for $ 125K including premium
Woah! #JohnLennon's own copy of the #Beatles 'Butcher Cover' up for sale @HeritageAuction: https://t.co/Ib7md7bVUu pic.twitter.com/XKleN3JiFc
— JustCollecting (@just_collecting) October 11, 2017