Description
Popular in Great Britain in the 1960’s, E.P,’s (Extended Play records) were the size of a single, but instead of only one song per side – they had at least two – for a total of four songs or more on the record. Here is an incredibly rare signed 7″ E.P. sleeve for “The Beatles’ Hits”, which had on it The Beatles’ first 3 singles: “Love Me Do”, “Please, Please Me” and “From Me To You”. The record, which was the band’s second E.P., was released on September 6, 1963, and it promptly reached #1 on the charts, where it remained for 3 weeks. All four have autographed the back of this “The Beatles’ Hits” E.P. sleeve beautifully in bold dark black ballpoint pen. The signatures on this E.P. are extremely bold – a 10 out of 10. The sleeve was signed on December 14, 1963, before a performance by The Beatles at the Wimbledon Palais in London. The London based ‘Beatles Southern Area Fan Club’ held a ‘meet and greet’ at the venue before the show and this E.P. was signed at that time.
The Beatles were seated behind a bar as fans went by and they signed autographs early on, but ceased signing after only a short while due to the fact that there were so many autograph seeking Fan Club members in attendance and the line was moving along too slowly. After the meet and greet, the Beatles performed a half hour concert for the fans. This is a great representative example of a set of Beatles autographs from this desirable period in Beatles history, as they were less than two months away from their history making first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in New York.
This signed E.P. is absolutely stunning in person and the condition is MINT. It was signed on the day and put away and not ever handled much at all and it shows! This gem has never been on the market before. Beatles signed record sleeves in this condition are so far and few in between and one like this has not come along in in a long time. It comes with the original record, which is also in near mint condition, showing no signs at all of ever being played.
Beatles Parlophone Records E.P.’s were constructed exactly the same way their album covers were, with a thick gloss front and paper stock back that was extremely accommodating to ballpoint pens. Beatles signed E.P.’s are infinitely rarer than pricier LP’s – somewhere in the 40 to 1 range.
Signed record covers in any form at all are now very hard to find anywhere and they are highly desirable. This Beatles signed E.P. is really a beautiful piece of Beatles history.