Beatles-Signed Albums Top the Charts at Bonhams

The albums were featured among an extensive selection of music memorabilia on offer, including a Jim Morrison cowhide jacket that sold for $20,000. Morrison wore the jacket at the Doors' 1969 Madison Square Garden concert. Shortly into the concert, he took the jacket off and threw it into the crowd where the consignor's boyfriend caught it.

Many bidders also took interest in a selection of letters written by Tupac Shakur which brought a total of $59,625, ahead of a pre-sale estimate of $16,900. The top-selling letter alone sold for $15,000. Shakur wrote the letters to his friend Desiree Smith while he was imprisoned in upstate New York in 1995. They include Shakur’s writings about who he believed was behind the shooting at Quad Records and who set him up on the sexual abuse charge that sent him to prison, as well as his feelings about imprisonment and his short-lived marriage to Keisha Morris.

Also noteworthy in the auction was a grouping of 152 film noir screenplays from the late 1930s through the 1970s which brought $56,250, and a collection of Sherlock Holmes, screenplays which took in $12,500. Of further mention, a Norma Shearer 10k gold Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences® life membership card flew past its $800 estimate to bring $13,750 and a Charles Schulz Peanuts daily cartoon from1963 sold for $12,500.

Bonhams' Director of Entertainment Memorabilia, Catherine Williamson, commented of the auction, "The market for entertainment memorabilia continues to be strong across several collecting areas, but we are seeing real growth in the market for items from the recent past, like the Tupac Shakur manuscripts."

To view additional results from the sale, please visit www.bonhams.com/auctions/21818/.

Collectors take note, Bonhams' next auction of Entertainment Memorabilia will take place June 24, 2015 at Bonhams’ Knightsbridge, London saleroom.