Photo Credit: George Harrison’s toast by Joseph Robert O’Donnell
A piece of toast allegedly partially eaten by George Harrison has been acquired by a memorabilia dealer.
Joseph O’Donnell, a “passionate collector” of Beatles and music memorabilia, has paid an undisclosed sum for a piece of toast allegedly eaten and then discarded by George Harrison in 1963. The toast has been kept in a scrapbook for the last few decades and was previously auctioned off in 1991.
“It’s a brilliant story that is both bizarre, historical, and a story I’ll continue telling friends, memorabilia collectors, and fellow Beatles fans,” said O’Donnell in a statement to the Daily Express.
Though the toast came from a 1963 breakfast, the story actually begins a year prior, when 15-year-old Beatles fan Sue Houghton befriended the Harrison family. In 1963, while visiting the Harrison home, she pocketed a piece of crust left behind by the Beatle. She put it in a scrapbook with the caption, “Piece of George’s breakfast. 2-8-63.”
This date, August 2, 1963, is significant. The Beatles played their final show at Liverpool’s Cavern Club (where they got their start) the next day.
In 1991, according to The Los Angeles Times, the toast, along with a love letter John Lennon wrote to his ex-wife Cynthia, went for $94,800 at auction via Christie’s in London.
Houghton, the fan who collected the toast back in ‘63, was quoted in a 1995 interview with Yeah! magazine: “[I] concentrated on collecting parts of [the Beatles’] everyday life that would only mean something to me, things so minor that they would never miss them.”
According to Houghton, Harrison’s mother Louise invited her inside their home, knowing she was a big Beatles fan. Quotes from her in Mark Lewisohn’s 2013 book, The Beatles – All These Years – Extended Special Edition, explains that Harrison’s mother let her “rummage around” in Harrison’s room whenever she went over to the house.
The book also includes a photo of a letter Harrison wrote Houghton, thanking her for giving his mom flowers and chocolate. It also included instructions for washing his car, which Houghton said was a joke; she’d asked Louise if she could wash his car.
Harrison, who died in 2001, has joked about the toast’s authenticity. In a 1992 interview with VOX magazine, he was quoted saying, “I ate all my toast! I never left any!”
While the toast is an unusual piece of memorabilia, Beatles items continue to rake in the cash. Back in May, a guitar John Lennon played in 1964 during the recording of Help! sold at auction for $2.85 million. The guitar had been lost for half a century before it was found, abandoned, in the attic of a home in the English countryside.
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.