Beatles collectors take note - 15,000 pieces of Fab Four memorabilia are coming to auction next year.
The records, posters, autographs, figurines and other memorabilia all come from French Beatles obsessive Jacques Volcouve.
Volcouve hopes the sale will fund his retirement
Regarded as the country's leading Beatles memorabilia expert, Volcouve began amassing his collection in 1967 after hearing the band's Sgt Pepper album for the first time.
"The Beatlemania bug bit me and I was never cured of it," Volcouve explained to the Observer newspaper.
"I listened to the album and I thought the music was incredible. From then on, I wanted everything to do with the Beatles: records; newspaper clips, posters, memorabilia… everything.
"For many years I was insufferable because all I talked about was the Beatles. I tried to find a professional job but in the end I was always the 'Beatles historian', and every time I had any money I spent it on Beatles stuff."
"Still, George [Harrison] told me in 1977 that if just one person appreciates your work then it hasn't been a waste of time, and I know the things I have done over the last 40 years have been important to many people.
Volcouve hopes the sale will accrue sufficient funds to offer him a comfortable retirement.
"I will go on loving the Beatles but the collection had become like an octopus whose tentacles were strangling me," he said.
The pieces will sell at Drouot auction house in Paris on March 18.
John Lennon's Gibson guitar is the most valuable piece of Beatles memorabilia ever sold. Stolen from a Beatles gig at London's Finsbury Empire, it reappeared in 2015 when it auctioned for $2.4m.
You can buy a complete set of Beatles autographs at Paul Fraser Collectibles.
