Unreleased 1963 Beatles demo selling on eBay

An unreleased 1963 Beatles demo is for sale on eBay, with bidding already at £2,220 ($3,006) ahead of an October 11 close date.

The track, What Goes On, was released on the UK edition of Rubber Soul in 1965, and only appeared in the US on Yesterday and Today the following year.

Beatles demo acetate

Lennon originally wrote What Goes On for the Quarrymen 

It’s a very early John Lennon track, having originally been written for the Quarrymen – his first band.

This recording features Lennon and McCartney, with John playing guitar and Paul providing backing vocals.

This acetate later ended up in the hands of George Harrison, who gifted it to a family member.

It last sold for £6,250 ($8,458) at Bonhams London in 2012.

That’s a sum it will exceed by a dramatic amount this time round.

There have been several sales of early Beatles acetates in the intervening years, the largest of which was the £77,500 paid at Omega Auctions in 2016 for a 1962 cut of Till There Was You ($116,000) and Hello Little Girl (the band’s first recorded demo).  

More recently a cut of It’s For You, written for fellow Liverpudlian Cilla Black in 1964, made £18,000 ($24,320).

We can expect the present lot to sell for a similar figure.

We have some extraordinary Beatles memorabilia for sale, including a complete set of autographs from the band.

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