The contract will now be auctioned at New York’s Heritage Auctions on September 19, with its value estimated at $150,000 (£95,500).
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Signed in Hamburg, Germany in 1961, the contract details some of the band’s first gigs during a visit to Hamburg from 1960-1962.
“Not many people know that The Beatles started their careers in Germany”, said Beatles expert Ulf Kruger. They played there three months in a row, every night.
While the record, which was released while Pete Best was still the drummer, did not trouble the charts, it did prick the interest of Brian Epstein who went to see them perform back home at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and the rest is history. The resulting single from the recording session – a rock & roll version of “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean” – led directly to the Beatles being discovered by manager Brian Epstein, through whose efforts the group then secured their unprecedented worldwide success.
Heritage Auction officials say Blaschke’s collection tells the story of the Beatles through original photos, documents, autographs and memorabilia.
“It really is where they honed their musical skills to become the Beatles”, he said.
But it was “crazy luck” that got them to Hamburg, he said. Written in German it renamed the band as the Beat Brothers, because it was believed that local pop fans would not relate to a group called The Beatles. Liking what he heard, Kaempfert enlisted the Beatles and another Top Ten Club performer, Tony Sheridan, to spend a day recording rock & roll versions of traditional songs for the German market. “It covers everything else”. The auction also includes a signed copy of the band’s first UK single Love Me Do and a postcard Ringo Starr sent to his mother from Hamburg.
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– A Swiss restaurant menu card signed by the Beatles while they were filming “HELP” in 1965.
