Issue 42 summer 24 web - Flipbook - Page 113
leave the country - it continues to be on show in Liverpool
at the Beatles Story Museum. Way back in 1985 a Canadian businessman paid $2.23 million for Lennon’s psychedelically painted Rolls Royce Phantom V.
particular I loved the harmonic sweep of ‘She’s Leaving
Home’. Luckier still, I had a friend whose father ran a
restaurant in Chelsea, adored his only son and bought
him every single and Lp that he wanted, not only the
Rolling Stones, Kinks, Donovan and Spencer Davis
Group in the UK, but also what was just being released
in the US. This included Buffalo Springfield (with Neil
Young and Stephen Stills – the latter part of Crosby, Stills
and Nash), the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Love,
Captain Beefheart and the Doors. We heard all this
seminal work at the same time as the UK disc jockeys
were hearing it. This had a profound influence on me and
I have always had high regard for the best rock ‘n roll.
Added to this I have been fortunate enough to act for
many of the established names in the music business and
value some of the best collections.
Even a set of four Beatles signatures from the early 1960s
will now make £2,000 at auction, even if only on a piece
of paper. Add context and the price goes up -you would
need to spend at least £10,000 to buy one of the Beatle
signed publicity photographs from the Bahamas location
filming of ‘Help’ in 1965, one of the last times that it could
be guaranteed that all four signatures were genuine. However some examples apparently signed by only two Beatles
at that location have been proved to be fakes. From the
early days of Beatlemania, Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans,
the road manager and his assistant, together with Derek
Taylor, the publicist, and even the fan club secretaries,
copied the group’s signatures to meet the overwhelming
demand as the boys could only cope with so much. That
said Paul McCartney became adept at copying his bandmates’ writing and often wrote all four ‘signatures’ himself.
Retail prices for individual signatures have risen enormously, with one dealer now asking £1,200 for Ringo’s
signature, £2,000 for Macca’s, £2,950 for George’s and
£7,000 for John’s.
Problems with modern collecting
Let’s now turn to a relatively new problem in the world
of valuation. This is the need to explain to a growing
number of new collectors, particularly when involved in
divorce proceedings, that the contemporary art for which
they had paid thousands of pounds from a respectable
gallery is only worth a few pounds when it comes to sell/
assess its market value.
A few years ago I was involved as expert witness in a
divorce where the main asset comprised the husband’s
collection of over 2,000 items of Sting and Police memorabilia, including a number of Sting’s old bass guitars, gold
discs, tour clothing and rare vinyl. The problem arose that
nothing could be formally authenticated. Although the
husband had got to know his idol over the course of the
years and had had a number of items signed for him, Sting
himself pooh-poohs the whole concept of rock ‘n roll
memorabilia being of value and refuses to play the authentication game. Nevertheless it was clear which the
stand-out pieces were. No hand-written lyrics though.
Of particular concern is that several of the galleries now
operating are virtual selling platforms and self-curated, allowing artists a retail facility where the effectiveness of
presentation to the buying public far outweighs any intrinsic merit in the art. The result is that works that cost
thousands may be worth a nominal sum when it comes
to a market valuation. Market valuations for the attention
of the court are customarily based on comparables sold at
public auction. Where there is no record of an artist’s
work having sold at auction anywhere in the world, there
are clearly no direct comparables and the market value is
minimal.
Another divorce involved me in valuing a large number
of guitars in houses both in England and Ireland, including several Fender Stratocasters of some age that the husband used both on stage and for recording, together with
tapes of many unreleased songs, as well as the standard
fare of gold discs, awards, stage clothing and other
ephemera. But he was also a big snooker fan and his
snooker room was full of billiard and snooker memorabilia, including items featuring Jimmy White and Ronnie
O’Sullivan. It all needed to be listed.
A recent valuation for probate (like most expert witness
set at open market levels) produced a total barely into five
figures for paintings and sculpture that had cost the deceased upwards of £150,000 within the last five years.
One painting which he had bought in 2014 for £3,750
was valued for the princely sum of £300. Indeed this work
did not strictly need to be individually valued, as the Revenue only require items with a market value of £500 or
more to be listed for them, but the executors had requested a fuller list to allow them to distribute works fairly
amongst friends and family. There were some lovely limited edition bronze medallions, but these were only worth
singly between £20 and £40 to sell, whereas each had cost
hundreds.
I was fortunate enough to grow up during the 1960s, for
me the golden age of the 45, In particular I was a Beatles
fan. When each and every one of their singles came out,
it was an event. It’s hard to grasp down the years, but their
knack, helped by their producer George Martin, was to
make every new 45 sound different from all that had gone
before. When Sergeant Pepper came out in June 1967,
there I was at 3am playing it at the tiniest volume (so not
to wake the house) and memorising all the words. In
The same or at least a similar problem can often be true
with jewellery - I am not a qualified gemmologist and am
therefore not prepared to give expert witness on the value
of any precious stones, but values on gold between scrap
and retail are often several hundred percent. I wore an
i
i
Conservation & Heritage Journal
111
